EU MONITOR: Recharging the Czech EU Presidency

Czechia will enter its second round of the EU Presidency on the 1st of July. Despite the ongoing major shift toward e-mobility across the EU, no strong commitments are coming from the Czech government. The widely accepted milestone of 2035 for phasing-out the sales of new non-zero-emission cars is still perceived by many local policy-makers as unrealistic. Michal Hrubý, a research fellow at the Institute for European Policy, writes in his EU Monitor.

Recommendations

• Strategic e-mobility communication – the Czech EU presidency provides a unique opportunity to show our support for the e-mobility transition. While we need to communicate both externally to the global stakeholders and internally to local producers and consumers, we cannot forget that the EU presidency means managing dialogue between the EU Member States. Not lobbying for our interests.
• Strong governmental support toward battery production – a precondition for successful automotive transformation. Investment incentivization is not the only key ingredient to success. We also need to conceptually change the way we prepare the current and future workforce and the way we promote the general idea of e-mobility transition. Supporting both private and public sector to adopt e-mobility and build the charging infrastructure means to show the good practice to the Czech general public.
• Need to create a conceptual framework for skill transfer and use – Czechia mostly relies on the sole production of passenger cars and is influenced by the decision-making of mother companies with foreign headquarters. We must prove that we are ready to acquire new tasks and jobs connected to higher value added while still keeping relatively lower labour costs compared to countries such as Germany.

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Michal Hrubý
Research Fellow

Expertise: EU green economics, heavy industry, transport

EU Monitor Archív
Publications series

Raising awareness about the inner workings of the European Union and how they impact the influence of the Czech Republic within EU structures.