Member-only story
70,000 Czechs Protest the Government, Inflation, and Energy Prices
Europe is screwed — And the city I call home finally hit the front pages of the Western press
When it comes to the news and global affairs, the Czech Republic usually flies way under the radar. It is a small country in Central Europe, doesn’t have much of a population — Italy is 6X bigger — and has an economy around the size of Alabama, but overall satisfaction and the standard of living punch well above their weight when compared to salary size and GDP per capita.
I’ve been living here for over three years and am often told that, due to the history of oppression, Czechs are not the first to go on strike or hit the streets in protest — as opposed to the Italian, French, or Spanish stereotypes. Czechs are more of a ‘suffer in silence’ population.
But being a small economy in the EU and — very importantly — still having its own currency, it is very vulnerable to the changing economic winds of Europe. If things are bad in Brussels, Paris, and Berlin, chances are they’re much worse here.
And that’s what we’re seeing now as the EU is experiencing around 9% inflation while the Czech Republic is battling with a rate in the high teens, and the rating agency Moody’s just downgraded the economic outlook…
