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“Halik, politically. Think politically, Halík!” the legendary lieutenant Hamáček became angry in the book about the Black Barons. The overzealous corporal Halík forced the soldiers of the technical battalions to practice at night, they then performed poorly on the construction site during the day, and the responsible officer Hamáček lost his bonuses.
So Hamáček’s rule is that one must strive, but in such a way that it has a positive economic (in Hamáček’s terminology, “political”) effect. Those planning investments in domestic highways could also learn a lesson.
The Ministry of Transport approved the budget of the State Fund for Transport Infrastructure (SFDI) for the year 2025 on Monday. Expenditures will reach 160 billion crowns, approximately 60 billion will go to investments in the road network, of which about two-thirds will go to highways.
More interesting than the general numbers, however, is the structure of expenses. According to the transport budget, the Czech Republic started building highways this year (and Class I roads with highway parameters), which together will amount to 90 billion, in 2025 it will be 65 billion. At the same time, the state investor ŘSD will complete highway sections this year for 35 billion and next year for the same amount. There is no doubt that the Ministry of Transport under the leadership of Martin Kupka is trying, and that its efforts are described by one of the superlatives of the ministerial spokesman František Jemelka: “Thanks to the pro-investment budget, we can continue with a record number of projects under construction,” he said in a press release.
In other words, although record sums are invested, few buildings are completed – and the economic (in Hamáček’s words, “political”) effect is postponed.
Of course, this does not mean that nothing will be completed this year and next year. For example, after five years of construction, driving will begin on the České Budějovice bypass and the D6 highway will stretch from Prague to the borders of the Karlovy Vary Region. However, it will only be possible to talk about more significant help for the domestic economy in a longer perspective, when the individual parts of the highway sections, built using the salami method, are assembled into the promised backbone network. However, the deadline is continuously being pushed back.
One peculiarity of domestic investing is to blame. Road workers have already experienced a few periods when construction almost stopped. Then a minister usually takes office, most recently Dan Ťok (ANO), who starts preparing the buildings, and his successors, Karel Havlíček (ANO) and Martin Kupka (ODS), get the chance to launch as many projects as possible. He does so with firm confidence that the constructions will be completed in the foreseeable future.
Again, however, it was found that the mentioned model has a dark side. There were suddenly so many construction contracts that they exceeded the capacity of the domestic construction industry, and prices began to rise sharply. In Dan Ťok’s time, companies were also happy to build the Přerov-Lipník highway on the D1, where the state paid only 300 million crowns per kilometer, roughly the same amount as in Poland. Today, however, the SFDI budget plans highways, the kilometer of which costs the state treasury an average of 700 million. It is difficult to explain this with inflation, when in the last five years it reached “only” thirty-five percent in the construction sector. However, there is no doubt that fewer kilometers will be built than expected.
The Czech Republic also experienced an overheated transport investment market fifteen years ago under Minister Aleš Řebíček (ODS), but to a lesser extent. The most expensive Řebíček project was the southern part of the Prague ring road, including two two-kilometer tunnels and the longest Czech bridge, where the state paid a billion per kilometer. The SFDI 2025 budget includes the southeastern part of the circuit, where there are neither such long tunnels nor such large bridges, yet the costs will reach 1.9 billion per kilometer.
The high cost in the southeast can be partially justified by the fact that a six-lane highway will be built there, but it will be even more difficult to explain to the state investor why the seven-kilometer Napajedla-Babice section on the D55, which will begin construction in two years, plans to spend over 12 billion in the budget .
The course of the investment offensive certainly cannot be described by the words that the goal, i.e. the completion of the backbone network, is moving away despite all efforts. However, the question of the economic benefit of this offensive is appropriate.
