Left coalition emerges in Czechia, plans to reject Green Deal

A joint candidate list of minor political left groupings is taking shape in Czechia ahead of the 2024 EU Parliament elections and they’ve got plans that include rejecting the European Green Deal.

Among prominent figures that could run for the new left-wing coalition is Jiří Paroubek, a former Czech prime minister and ex-leader of the country’s social democratic party (S&D), who later left the party to establish his own movement. Paroubek could join forces with Kateřina Konečná, a Czech MEP and leader of the Communist Party (GUE-NGL).

Paroubek shared the stage with Konečná during anti-government demonstrations where both politicians voiced grievances against the current government, accusing it of prioritising support for Ukraine over the welfare of Czech citizens.

Konečná confirmed to Euractiv.cz that negotiations are ongoing and that they are trying to make the left-wing candidate list as diverse as possible.

“During the campaign, we will target peace policy in particular, we will touch on sovereignty issues, for example, by rejecting the abolition of the principle of unanimity, or we want to allow citizens to express whether or not they want to remain in the EU,” Konečná told Euractiv.cz.

“We also want to focus on food prices and quality and, last but not least, we want to reject the Green Deal and pay attention to social instruments – such as the European minimum wage,” Konečná said.

Konečná has previously criticised the European Green Deal, claiming it will lead to higher prices and increased hardships for the Czech industry and farmers.

Currently, Czech left-leaning voters are underrepresented in the EU Parliament. In the 2019 elections, only Konečná gained a seat for the Communist Party, while the social democrats failed to secure any.

However, following separation from the ANO (Renew) party, the Czech Social Democrats (now SOCDEM) gained representation in the European Parliament through Radka Maxová, who wants to be their lead candidate in the upcoming EU elections.

(Aneta Zachová, Ondřej Plevák | Euractiv.cz)