Czech President Petr Pavel said on June 1 that the country should abandon the local currency, the koruna (CZK), and adopt the euro if keeping the koruna hinders the country’s development.

Export-oriented Czechia committed to adopt the euro as part of its EU accession in 2004, but several successive governments made only limited or no progress in euro adoption. The sitting eurosceptic cabinet of Andrej Babiš is against joining the eurozone. 

“The fact alone that our economy is significantly interwoven with the eurozone should lead us to tell ourselves that in this case it is better to sit at the table where decision are made, rather than sit behind the door and then deal with these decisions,” Pavel was quoted as saying by Czech Radio (CRo).

Pavel made the comments during the reVision of Czechia conference in Prague, where he also said that many politicians in the country contribute to negative publicity for the European currency in the country.

“I think that the Czech Republic can only really be successful in an integrated and strong Europe, and we have all the prerequisites for that in the euro,” Pavel said, adding that “we are not always able to meet these [prerequisites] because there is still fragmentation on many levels”.

Pavel’s comments come shortly after the Babiš-led cabinet abandoned work on annual report on the country’s readiness to adopt euro. Alongside Babiš’ ANO, the ruling coalition also includes the far-right Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD) party, which advocates Czexit, and the anti-green Motorists for Themselves party, which wants to see a revision of EU environmental policies,

Pavel also made high profile statements in favour of euro adoption during the tenure of previous centre-right cabinet of Petr Fiala, which was not eurosceptic, but was lukewarm towards euro adoption.

During last year’s New Year address Pavel stated that adoption of the euro would bring Czechia closer to German wages, reinvigorating the discussion set off by earlier comments from Fiala, who was ridiculed for claiming in November 2024 that if his government won another term in October 2025 elections he would be able to bring Czech wages level with German ones.

The euro is also opposed by sitting governor of the Czech National Bank (CNB) Aleš Michl, who is an ex-aide of Babiš, and who said last year in response to Pavel that adopting the euro “is no salvation” for the crawling progress in the country's economic convergence with Western European states.

Michl is following longstanding CNB policy, as the central bank has traditionally been cool about euro adoption, which would clip its monetary policymaking wings. 

As IntelliNews reported last October, two-thirds of Czechs (66%) oppose adopting the euro while 30% support it, according to an August survey by the Centre of Public Opinion Research (CVVM), an affiliate of the Czech Academy of Sciences.

Despite long-standing resistance to joining the eurozone, Czechs have largely favourable views on the country’s EU membership, with 66% of respondents expressing satisfaction and 31% dissatisfaction.