

In our series “25 Years after the fall of the Berlin Wall”, we are looking at Central and Eastern European countries to see how their relations with Europe (and Russia) have evolved over time, and how their internal economic and political situations have changed since the fall of the Soviet Union. Please click here for our first debate looking at Hungary.

Today, we’ll be looking at the Czech Republic, a country which ousted its last Communist leader from power in 1989 during the Velvet Revolution. Vaclav Havel was elected President and a democratic, multi-party system was introduced.

The Czech Republic is among the few former Soviet bloc countries that are doing well both economically and democratically. It has been given the highest possible score by Freedom House – an independent think tank that measures political rights and civil liberties across the globe – and Czech Gross Domestic Product per capita has increased almost fivefold since 1989. Statistically speaking, average living standards (such as life expectancy and mean years of schooling) have gone up considerably.

However, a recent poll conducted in the country shows that a large chunk of the population seems to think that living standards have deteriorated. For example, we had a comment on living standards sent in from Hrvoje, who wrote:

Life in many former-Communist countries is worse than 25 years ago, especially countries in Eastern Europe and the Balkans. They have many social problems, including huge corruption, nepotism, and fake democracy.

We put this question to Tomáš Kostelecký, Director of the Institute of Sociology at the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague. How would he respond to Hrvoje? Would he agree that living standards today are worse than before the fall of Communism?

It is not a very unusual opinion. There are some people who think that, in general, people in former Soviet countries live worse today than they did 25 years ago, but it really depends on who you are speaking to. Overall I think the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland are examples of countries that came out well, whereas for others it was not so successful. But it is very difficult to measure. Looking at economic data we can say that macro-economic numbers have improved, but there are definitely some people who are not doing better.

We put the same question to Jan Čulík, a Czech journalist and editor of Britské linty, an independent Czech political daily. How would he respond?

The poll that Čulík mentioned was conducted in Autumn 2014. According to the poll, 18% of Czechs feel that the system in general was better before 1989, while an additional 38% answered that they feel no difference between now and then. Asked whether the revolution was a good thing, 22% of the population said that the Velvet Revolution that led to regime change was not worth it. Finally, in terms of standard of living, 24% of respondents answered that it had become worse.

Most startling of all, the majority of people polled believed that job opportunities (61%), social security (66%) and personal safety and criminality (60%) were all better regulated in the Czech Republic during the Communist era.

Finally, we asked Martin Povejšil, Ambassador of the Czech Republic to the EU, how he would respond to Hrvoje’s comment:

Is life better today in the Czech Republic compared to 25 years ago? How have living standards changed in other former Soviet bloc countries? And are freedom of speech, information and expression more important than job and social security? JOIN the debate!

IMAGE CREDITS: CC / Flickr – Roman Boed