Vice-Rector Pavel Hnát appeared on the program Personality Plus on Czech Radio

Doc. Ing. Pavel Hnát, Ph.D., Vice-Rector of Prague University of Economics and Business and member of the Department of International Economic Relations at the Faculty of International Relations, was a guest of the program Personality Plus on Czech Radio with the moderator Barbora Tachecí. The half-hour interview covered a wide range of topics with one common denominator: the Czech strategy. Strategies to get out of the crisis – do we have any? Strategies for not continuing to indebt the state and, if possible, reversing the trend. A strategy for looking forward to a better tomorrow, not only on the labour market, and expecting a closely related improvement in the structure of the economy as a whole. A strategy for thinking long-term.

Vice-Rector Hnát started the conversation positively. In his opinion, we have made progress in living standards over the last decade, even though it may not seem so at first glance because of various economic indicators which, especially after periods of crisis, do not show the most optimistic absolute values. However, compared with other countries in Eastern Europe, with which, after all, we share a certain part of the road to economic prosperity, we are almost the best performers.

“If you look at the standard of living here, we are ahead of many countries in Western Europe, and with the exception of Slovenia, which has surpassed us, we are the best off of all the former Eastern European countries.”

doc. Ing. Pavel Hnát, Ph.D., Vice-Rector of Prague University of Economics and Business

Although we are a hard-working nation, we cannot deal with crises effectively, says the Vice-Rector. Unlike other countries, we still fail to understand that the world will never be the same after a crisis. And that we should set our expectations and future direction accordingly.

The conversation turned from crises and national strategies to the current problems in the country. Inflation, wages, debt. Who or which government is behind it? How to tackle it?

“This is a debt of the government. To explain to the people what the problem (with the debt) is without scaring them with the Greek way.”

doc. Ing. Pavel Hnát, Ph.D., Vice-Rector of Prague University of Economics and Business

Vice-Rector Hnát also outlined that we are facing a crisis of leadership and the structure of the labour market in the Czech Republic. This would be helped, he said, if the proportion of university graduates increased, thus helping to reduce the number of jobs with lower added value for the economy in favour of jobs that will propel it forward in the long term.