The central bank seems, in addition, concerned by amendments to the law on the CNB that were adopted in July. The changes, advocated by the ODS, would limit the CNB independence through a numbers of channels. First, the President would have to appoint the CNB board member only from the list selected by the government. Second, the CNB would have to produce two budgets - "operational" and "broad". Operational budget would include everything bar "direct expenses on monetary policy conduct" and would be subject to the Parliament approval. Similarly, wages of central bank officials would be scaled to wages in ministries. The central bank and the government would set inflation target and exchange rate regime.
Disregarding critique from the European Central Bank and a fierce opposition from the CNB, deputies from the governing CSSD and contract-opposition ODS voted for the amendments by a wide margin. While there is no immediate impact on the central policy the changes may make the central bank more friendly to the government wishes and may, eventually, lead to a less prudent monetary policy. However, the law may be challenged as unconstitutional and thus it remains to be seen and whether will become applicable.
(Ondrej Schneider)