Babis Says Would Want CNB To Lower Rates If Elected President

Former Prime Minister Andrej Babis, who is one of the leading contenders for presidency in the upcoming election, told E15 that he would want the central bank to reduce interest rates as tight monetary policy is not helpful in containing inflation. The interview was published in full this morning after E15 released selected snippets yesterday.

• "I certainly wish that the CNB did not have one of the highest basic interest rates in Europe. (...) It is naive to think that the CNB will defeat the oil cartel when the sheiks agree to increase or decrease production. And, of course, this strategy [i.e. rate hikes] does not affect emission allowances, the price of gas, the disconnection of the price of gas from the price of electricity."
• "We have already sent enough weapons [to Ukraine]. We don't have any more. We need weapons for the Czech army, and of course it needs to be coordinated within the EU and NATO."
• "Deficits are not reduced by strangling the economy, by stopping investment activity, by taking people's money. Certainly not, they made the same mistake as in 2009, when they deepened the crisis."
• Babis is one of the three leading candidates to become the next Czech President after the January election. Most opinion polls suggest that he stands a good chance of progressing to the runoff, where he would likely be defeated by either Petr Pavel or Danuse Nerudova.