The President of the Czech Republic, Petr Pavel, arrived in Valtice in the Břeclav region on Thursday morning. | Video: Diary/Terezia Heinz
President Pavel started the first day of the conference with his opening speech, in which he thanked the representatives of the municipalities for their success recent basins, which had a devastating effect on the Czech Republic in many places. “I must say that in the municipalities that I had the opportunity to visit, it was absolutely obvious that the mayors played a key role and many who did not directly solve the problems of their flooded municipalities and destroyed infrastructure participated in helping their colleagues,” said Petr Pavel.
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He added that he saw gratitude from the mayors of the affected municipalities for the offer of material or financial assistance from other leaders of local governments. “They helped manage a situation in which many found themselves for the first time and were under a lot of pressure to successfully solve the problems,” the president added.
Merger of municipalities
The president of the Association of Local Governments and Member of Parliament Eliška Olšáková appreciated that Petr Pavel became the first president to visit the organization’s conference. “We are honored and pleased that the president of the Czech Republic has also promised us participation for the first time,” said Olšáková during the president’s welcome.
After Pavlo’s opening speech, the conference continued with a short debate, in which most of the questions were directed to the topic of merging municipalities. That’s what it’s for Association of Local Governments one of the most pressing issues in which he is clearly opposed. In response to one of the questions, the president assured that he understands that the current administration is structured to some extent by historical heritage. “However, there are also countries where the administrative division is simpler than here,” the head of state mentioned.
On the issue of digitization, Petr Pavel suggested, for example, the involvement of private companies in the process itself. “Digitalization is associated with a significant reduction in bureaucracy, but also a significant reduction in the scope for corruption. That’s also why I think we should pay much more attention to digitization than we have done so far,” the president said.
Debate with students
President Petr Pavel concluded his two-day working trip to the South Moravian region Secondary wine school Valtice, where he debated with the students there in the afternoon.
The President of the Czech Republic already visited on Wednesday International engineering fair at the Brno exhibition grounds. “The works presented by students and companies are truly admirable. It testifies to the fact that we have technological capacity, and our companies and universities are absolutely comparable to the world,” Petr Pavel pointed out on Wednesday.
- The online broadcast from the conference in Valtice can be watched here:
| Video: Youtube
