Former finance minister urges MPs to ‘shut up and support’ austerity measures

Leader of the newly-formed party TOP 09, Miroslav Kalousek, urged MPs to ‘shut up and support’ the deficit-cutting package proposed by Jan Fischer’s government in Parliament on Thursday afternoon. Mr Kalousek launched a scathing attack on those ‘egotists’ who, he said, ‘were holding the austerity package to ransom’. The Civic Democrats applauded Mr Kalousek’s speech, believing it to be targeted at the leader of the Social Democrats, Jiří Paroubek, who has said he will not support the package if a number of changes are not made to the bill. Mr Kalousek said that now that this series of cost-cutting measures had been drafted, the best thing that MPs could do for the Czech Republic was put aside their differences and support it.

Author: Rosie Johnston