City of Brno, Czech Republic has a new chair for its Committee on National Minorities, a full-time, paid position criticized by the opposition

The local opposition has criticized the decision as weighing down the municipal budget. From the Interior Ministry’s methodological recommendations it follows that the monthly salary to chair a committee for a municipal assembly with 200,000 residents or more is CZK 99,117 [EUR 4,000].

The new chair is Monika Lukášová Spilková (Pirates), replacing Břetislav Štefan (SOCDEM), who has resigned. “The Committee on National Minorities has the agenda of culture as its mission. That is currently an absolutely dominant subject. That component of the Committee’s activity has to be strengthened, and the chairman or chairwoman has to dedicate himself or herself to that task full-time. Ms. Spilková has a very clear idea of how to do that. I think it makes sense for her to be given space to strengthen cultural integration in our city,” said Štefan.

“Support for national minorities should happen both at the level of subsidy policy and at the level of methodological guidance. It makes a lot of sense to coordinate such aid at the level of marketing and promotion. Prevention and suppression of conflicts among national minorities and creating room for dialogue should be an integral component of that. I am prepared to expand the Committee’s activities and to work for Brnoans and for those who are only now becoming Brnoans,” Lukášová Spilková said.

Local opposition assembly member Jana Drápalová (Greens) said that both her party and the “Live Brno” (Žít Brno) movement had previously warned that the current local administration has the highest number of paid positions ever, a burden on the budget that they called superfluous. “We cannot support setting up another paid position even though it is quite important for this area. That position has never been paid,” she said.

Matěj Hollan (Žít Brno) also questioned whether the post requires eight hours a day of work. “This is cronyism for CZK 100,000. Everybody here knows what the agenda of that Committee is,” he said.

The Committee met once during the fourth quarter last year. Deputy Mayor Robert Kerndl (Civic Democratic Party – ODS), who is in charge of social care, called Hollan’s words absurd.

Kerndl recalled the conflict last year between representatives of the Romani and the Ukrainian national minorities and the fact that several meetings were held for the purpose of calming tensions. “If only you had a taste of what we experienced,” he told Hollan.

“There is an unbelievable number of problems we will have to solve in the future. I am glad somebody will be actively dedicated to doing that,” Kerndl said.