At Prague Castle on Wednesday, President Miloš Zeman will appoint new members of the Bank Board of the Czech National Bank. This follows from the announcement of the Castle. He did not announce the names of the new central bankers.
At the end of June, the mandates of ČNB Governor Jiří Rusnok, Deputy Governor Tomáš Nidetzký, and Bank Board member Vojtěch Benda will expire.
Zeman can extend the mandates of Nidetzký and Benda or appoint new board members in their place. He must also appoint a new member of the seven-member board to replace Rusnok. On May 11, Zeman appointed current board member Aleš Michl as governor instead of Rusnok.
Next year in February, just before the end of President Zeman’s term of office, the terms of CNB Deputy Governor Marek Mora and board member Oldřich Dědek will expire. The latter, unlike Mora, cannot be reappointed because he was a member of the Bank Board once before.
Michl and Dědek are not currently in favor of raising rates, and they are in the minority in this view on the Bank Board. Former Prime Minister Andrej Babiš (ANO), to whom Michl served as an economic advisor, is also an opponent of raising rates.
However, the president’s actions regarding the appointment of other members may reverse the voting ratio on the board, according to economists’ earlier comments.
According to unverified recent speculation, the current chairwoman of the National Budget Council, Eva Zamrazilová, who was a member of the board from 2008 to 2014, could return to the board.
Jan Frait, who is now the director of the CNB’s financial stability department, is speculated to be the next board member. Frait was also a board member between 2000 and 2006. Other names being speculated upon are Karina Kubelková, an analyst at the Chamber of Commerce, and Lubor Lacina, an economist who works at the Institute of Finance at Mendel University.
The seven-member ČNB Bank Board determines the country’s monetary policy and decides on major monetary policy measures. In addition to shaping monetary policy, the ČNB is responsible for supervising the entire financial market, including banks, insurance companies, and the capital market.