Unlocking Czechia's Potential: Transatlantic Innovation, Workforce Growth, and Economic Independence

If you want more evidence of why the transatlantic relationship should, and will, endure, you can look at the remarkable efforts of companies in Moravia to transform that region into a hub for developing advanced technology.

On Thursday, we heard from Tomas Szaszi of Honeywell Renata Millerova of ThermoFisher Scientific and Klara Konvicna of onsemi how they are working with educators from kindergarten on up through graduate school to ensure the next generation of Czechs will be able to work at some of the best jobs available in the world- producing technology that the world needs to solve climate change and other societal challenges. By doing this, they are ensuring the connection between America and Czechia stays strong.

These companies- and the many start-ups growing in the region- need the government’s help to turn country’s innovative potential into reality. 

The government could start by getting Parliament to pass the immigration bill the government approved in August, and which has been sitting in front of Parliament awaiting action since that time. Ministers all say they support it, but that it should be someone else’s priority to actually do something about it. How we see it is that they do not support creating the innovative workforce we need to improve our competitiveness. They have the right to make that choice. What they are choosing by refusing to address this immigration bill is to keep Czechia as a subsidiary economy to Germany which must keep its salaries lower than its neighbors in order to remain competitive.

That is not what we want. We would like to utilize the growing transatlantic cooperation in advanced technology to turn Czechia into a creator of advanced, sustainable technology that competes globally. The companies in Moravian region are showing that we can compete. Now we need to supply them a deep pool of global talent to spread their success across the region and country.