Weekly Briefing, Vol. 25, No. 3 (CZ), January 2020
Prospects of the Social Development in 2020
This year, other steps towards digitalisation of the Czech state and public administration services should be taken. Not only will an „online revenue authority“ project be launched but also a „digital constitution“ should enter into force, stipulating the citizens´ right to communicate with the state electronically. Besides, revisions of an unsatisfactory legislation on the real estate and construction law are expected to be carried out with the aim of making the construction of (transport) infrastructure faster and more effective. In the following analysis, I will thus focus on these two significant areas in greater detail taking into account a broader social context.
On the eve of a digital state
A programme of digitalisation of the Czech state administration will be going on this year. At the end of 2019, the Chamber of Deputies passed several draft bills in this direction, for instance a bill on the right to digital services, a bill on bank identity (BankID/SONIA) or on a partial digitalisation of a process of getting building permit, which suffers from protractedness, thus contributing to stagnation of construction and development in our country. The first draft bill is also called a „digital constitution“. It is aimed at gradual digitalisation of all services performed and provided by the state where possible. The state has been elaborating a detailed list of its services which will be transformed into electronic form. At this moment, allegedly four fifths of the list is already prepared. The state administration thus should be faster, easier, more effective and „user-friendly“. The citizens will be endowed with the right to act and communicate digitally and the state will be obliged to accept this way of acting. Within this transformation, it will be enabled to generate and subsequently verify an officially certified signature without the neccesity to carry out this initial step personally at office. Moreover, a huge database will be created in order to avoid existing malady lying in the neccesity to give the same information out to different departments. In the near future, individual state authorities will share the data once obtained from the citizens. The „digital constitution“ has already been signed by the President Miloš Zeman, thus completing the legislative process.
The second bill mentioned in the previous paragraph is to provide an opportunity to use citizens´ bank identity and identification for legally valid and biding electronic signature in relation to state authorities. But it is not the only implication as the bill will enable banks and insurance companies to enter into state registers and information systems with the aim of control of their clients´ data. Nowadays, there is already a voluntary ID card with electronic chips, which is not, however, broadly used as its functionality remains very limited and complicated at the same time. On the contrary, the prospective innovation on the basis of the BankID bill rests in direct use of login data of citizens´ internet banking.
The draft bill regarding the real estate law is a step towards digitalisation of the building permit and cadastral processes and includes a „digital map“ of the Czech Republic. The map is aimed at providing a comprehensive aggregate of transport and technical infrastructure, thus uniting disintegrated, incomplete and inaccurate information and including data of water and gas pipelines, power lines, sewerage system, road and railway network, etc. As such, it will become one of the key central shared service of the eGovernment. In addition, digitalisation of the whole process of building permit would have significant, positive impact on this intricate agenda, which is of utter importance even from the point of view of the state and its interests.
The state authorities are well aware of the underdevelopment of the eGovernment, the digital administration project. According to an overwhelming majority of the state administration representatives, the current level of digitalisation will have not been sufficient by around 2024. Nowadays, 20 % of administrative operations have been carried out solely through classical paper form, 29 % through electronic form and 51 % have been provided in both ways. From an international ranking published by the Switzerland´s International Institute for Management Development last year follows that the Czech Republic worsened its position and decreased from 33rd to 37th place, primarily due to an alleged problematic regulations of business and entrepreneurship as well as low level of digitalisation of the state administration services. By contrast, a high share of robots and number of researchers per capita are found to be strengths.
The Prime Minister Andrej Babiš expects that the complete digitalisation of the state administration services will be finished in five years and pursues deeper cooperation between the state and private sector. He considers the BankID project to be a good example of such, mutually advantageous cooperation. Digitalisation agenda has been executed in line with the Digital Czech Republic strategy, approved by the government back in October 2018.[1] The strategy is a set of different conceptions and implementation plans which are to guarantee conditions for long-term, sustainable prosperity within the framework of the so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution. The Digital Czech Republic is based on three main pillars: (1) The Czech Republic in the digital Europe; (2) The digital public administration; (3) Digital economy and society. The first one follows principles and goals of the EU´s Digital Single Market (DSM) strategy, covering the problematics at the general level of state, private sector and society as a whole. The DSM normatives are reflected in the Information Conception of the Czech Republic, applying to the area of the public administration. And finally, implications of digitalisation on economic and societal system is taken into consideration in the third pillar. In the course of this year, an actualisation and revision of the strategy should be accomplished and adoption of a resolution on implementation of the programme is scheduled.
Building in a more effective way
Another area of crucial importance for successful development of the country is building of infrastructure, especially the transport one. The current state and progress are far from satisfying. In 2018, mere 4 kilometres of new motorways were built and inaugurated, in 2020 the figure remained low amounting to 34 kilometres. This year, opening of 21 kilometres is planned, namely two parts of the D6 motorway connecting the capital of Prague with the regional city of Karlovy Vary (Carlsbad) in western Bohemia, and a part of the D48 motorway in Moravia and Silesia. In addition, a general reconstruction of the traffic artery D1 motorway has been going on, which has complicated a traffic situation and fluency in the Czech Republic significantly as a parallel connection is still absent, and 24 kilometres of new bypasses will be launched this year. The total price of the new parts of the Czech motorway network shall be 23.6 billion CZK (more than 94 million EUR) in 2020. In the following years, construction of the D3, D6, D7, D11, D48 and D55 motorways will continue. According to the Ministry of Transportation, 260.3 kilometres of new roads has been under construction, including more than 138 kilometres of motorways, at this moment. Let´s remind that there are approximately 1256 kilometres of motorways in service.
The state has been criticised for a slow and protracted construction of the traffic infrastructure over a long period, the preparation process being seemingly the most problematic point. It lasts up to 13 years on average, which is much longer than in the neighbouring countries. Therefore, the government approved an amendment of the Act no. 416/2009 Coll., on Acceleration of Construction of Transport Infrastructure which is to shorten the process by a third. Even in that case it would last by 3 years longer than in Germany. The amendment envisages changes of the legal institute of nationalisation with the aim of rendering it more effective. The whole nationalisation proceedings should not take more than 90 days. So far, no such a limit has been set so the authorities in charge have not been pushed to act quickly. Similarly, the proceedings linked to the evaluation of impacts on the environment are disintegrated with long time limits. The amendment, on the contrary, aims to make the process coherent and short. The Ministry of Transportation hopes that the amendment will have entered into force by the half of this year.
It is more than obvious that substantial changes in this direction are needed. The construction of (not only) infrastructure has been hampered by many factors since the 1990s. I will mention two of them which play an essential role. First, a new, liberal-democratic legal framework and legal principles postulate an excessive defence of private ownership whose position is frequently stronger than social, collective interests. Interests and rights of individuals became protected to the detriment of collective ones. This is not to say that the opposite attitude (which was adopted prior to 1989) is right. The most adequate way seems to be in the middle, in a balance between protection of individual rights on one hand and collective interests on the other. Up to now, one person suffices to block the construction process for years, the state having little space to force him or her to make concessions to the legitimite interests of the state and society. It appears that the authorities are aware of this serious problem endeavouring to solve it by means of the amendment. Second, the post-1989 socio-economic transformation brought an excessive openness, inclusiveness and limitlessness of the whole process since the very beginning of planning until the construction itself. It is usually so prolonged because of an immense number of opportunities to make a protest again any aspect of the project from anybody. There are several, primarily ecologically-oriented organisations which have caused delay in many crucial projects. Such a practice is detrimental beyond doubt and the state and lawmakers should eliminate it as soon as possible. The question is whether the amendment, which is to be passed this year, will provide a satisfactory solution, thus contributing to restore appropriate balance in this area.
[1] The official webside of the Digital Czech Republic project is available at: https://www.digitalnicesko.cz (in Czech).