Politicians and commentators, who have always been opposed to efforts to reverse or mitigate destructive climate changes, are coming up with new tactics. In the situation of Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine, the change in United States policy, when it’s no longer clear whether they are a European ally and what exactly their role in NATO is, Europe must spend more money on armaments and strengthening its armies. Europe supposedly cannot afford to spend on climate measures and armies simultaneously. How exactly these two areas came into conflict remains a “mystery”. It’s a tactic to push the saving of life in the longer term out of the conceivable and rational.

The chairman of Czechia’s National Budget Council, Mojmír Hampl, warns: “Either the Green Deal or armaments. We must choose... not even wealthy Europe can finance decarbonisation, energy change and at the same time completely new spending priorities such as defence. Together, even Europe doesn’t have enough for this,” warns the economist who has been opposing the Green Deal and decarbonisation for years. For instance, in 2022 he wanted Europe to change its “fanatical greening”. Now he’s just found a new stick.

If Stanjura weren’t such a closed-minded dogmatist and had at least an inkling of where money in the state budget comes from, we would have enough money for almost anything.

Political scientist Lukáš Valeš picked up the same idea on Prima CNN: “The only option the European Union has is to immediately cancel the Green Deal... We must choose: either security or the Green Deal. The same applies to prosperity: either prosperity or the Green Deal... The whole thing is standing on its head. They’re laughing at us in Washington and Moscow. If we continue to hold on to green illusions, there’s no point in talking about defence at the European level at all.”

It almost seems that cancelling the Green Deal is the cure for all problems and concerns we have, probably including climate change itself. Either we want love, prosperity, and world peace, or the Green Deal. Just cancel it and we’ll be swimming in money, we’ll live in eternal economic growth, a utopian paradise will bloom on Earth, and finally, the United States and Russia won’t laugh at us. Probably after we start taking more fossil fuels from them, instead of producing energy from the sun and wind.

Either paradise on Earth or the Green Deal

ODS politicians, who have hated the Green Deal since its inception, who didn’t believe in climate change even before they heard about it, certainly have clarity. In the new situation, after carefully weighing all the pros and cons in about a second, they concluded that we must immediately cancel the Green Deal. Like the Minister of Finance and de facto Czech Prime Minister Zbyněk Stanjura: “Either decarbonisation and the Green Deal or defence. That’s how I see it. The EU doesn’t see it that way yet, I think. The closer to Russia, the more clearly we see it; the further away, the less clearly. It’s high time for everyone to understand this.”

If Stanjura weren’t such a closed-minded dogmatist and had at least an inkling of where money in the state budget comes from, we would have enough money for almost anything. It was Stanjura who advocated and jumped for joy when Babiš, SPD, and his ODS managed to abolish the super-gross wage, which deprived the state budget of today’s approximately 140 billion crowns. We can add other measures from that time, such as the abolished real estate transfer tax or the government’s project to abolish EET, where we don’t even know how many billions the budget lost because the Ministry of Finance couldn’t calculate it.

This money is constantly missing, so the government wasn’t even able to fulfil its commitment for teachers to really have salaries at 130 percent of the country’s average, as promised by law, or to spend on education at least as much as the OECD average, as they wrote in their policy statement. Instead, we spend less on education, our investments in science, research, and universities are below average. It’s as if this government had long ago constructed and answered for itself the dilemma: either the Green Deal, education, science and research, or the army and motorway construction.

When Fiala’s government announced a plan to gradually increase military spending from the current two to three percent of GDP, it’s a difference of roughly 77 billion crowns. That’s half of the abolished super-gross wage. The other half could still serve education, science, and research. But it’s not just Stanjura; Defence Minister Jana Černochová sees it similarly.

“Instead of dealing with our own defence capability, instead of dealing with how we will survive, we will deal with decarbonisation and the Green Deal? I think these are topics that should be sidelined. We need to reconsider and change the setting within the EU. If we are fighting for survival as Europe and it’s the ’last call’ for all of us, we have no other option.”

Either pensions or healthcare

Instead of addressing “how we will survive”, Minister Černochová is dealing with how to dismiss the Chief of General Staff Karel Řehka, forcing her subordinates to collect compromising materials on him. I don’t know how this is supposed to help our defence capability and whether her actions aren’t perhaps a bigger problem than the Green Deal.

The basis for the survival of people and our civilisation is a stable climate on Earth. Yet we’ve probably never heard anyone from ODS ever rallying: instead of addressing the climate, we’re pouring hundreds of billions into asphalt, we simply can’t afford this in this situation!

Perhaps we can pose the dilemma completely differently. Like either there will be money for defence, or for motorways or nuclear reactors. Otherwise, it simply doesn’t work. We’ll see what the real priorities of these right-wing hawks fighting against the climate are. Whether they can forgo something as superfluous as tonnes of asphalt for quick car journeys. We can really do without that for some time, we’ll make do with what we have, but politicians just won’t be able to cut the ribbon on every kilometre of newly laid asphalt, nor pop champagne at every new motorway exit. A record 81 billion crowns is supposed to go into asphalt this year. That’s more than it would cost to immediately increase the defence budget to the planned three percent, and we wouldn’t have to cut any money for the Green Deal or anything else.

Climate has moved somewhere to the edge of the news in the shadow of war, but that doesn’t mean it’s not our priority, that the planet isn’t warming, that we’re not heading towards collapse. The cynical jumping around of Czech politicians and some commentators, that there’s no other way than to cancel the Green Deal and let the climate collapse, is purposeful and false, like their lives and political careers.

Their claim that Europe can’t afford something now collides with real events in Europe. In neighbouring Germany, Merz agreed with the Greens that increasing defence spending would be accompanied by an increase in funds for fighting climate change from 50 to 100 billion euros. This would make Stanjura and Černochová’s heads spin.

That both are possible is shown by the Nordic countries. Denmark puts more money into defence than the Czech Republic, wants to massively increase investments in the coming years, is one of the biggest supporters of Ukraine at all in terms of GDP and is simultaneously radically changing its energy sector, building renewable sources, and wants to become carbon neutral soon. In parallel, they manage to have good education and a massive welfare state. As if they don’t care what Russians and Americans laugh at. As if they don’t know at all that they must choose either one or the other. Because when you really want to, there’s no either/or. Only our politicians, who have a single answer to every problem, operate in a mode of light and darkness: immediately cancel the Green Deal.

Stanislav Biler

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