According to the Prosperity and Financial Health Index, the Czech Republic has the ninth highest social solidarity and trust in the EU. The willingness of the Czechs to help contributed to the relatively good result. At the same time, the Czech Republic achieved a similar result in the past years. On the other hand, the integrity of Czech society is reduced by long-term low trust in the government and the problem of corruption. The Czech Republic ranked 16th among the 27 European countries in managing corruption. The index is created jointly by Česká spořitelna and the data portal Evropa v data.
The analysis of the Prosperity and Financial Health Index shows that 63 percent of Czechs helped a stranger in the last month. In addition, people can often rely on the support of loved ones. In case of emergency, nine out of ten Czechs have someone to turn to.
In recent years, however, there has been an increase in the number of people who have to rely only on themselves. “While in 2020, 96.4 percent of Czechs had someone to turn to, each subsequent year the share of these people decreased. In 2023, there were only 92.7 percent,” said Milan Mařík from the Europe in Data project. “However, it is true that 2020 was atypical due to covid and that the current values have returned to a similar level as they were before the arrival of covid-19,” he added.
According to the index from 2022, the Czech Republic had the highest share of those who have someone to turn to in the EU, according to the current one, the Czech Republic fell to sixth position. At the same time, however, Czechs often help unknown people, the analysis states. Data from the World Giving Index 2023 show that almost a third of them helped an unknown person. This ranks the Czech Republic in third place in the European twenty-seventh. At the same time, this is an improvement of eight rungs compared to 2022.
According to the index, the Czech Republic also ranks relatively well in the credibility of the judiciary. Judges are trusted by 65 percent of the population, which corresponds to the 11th highest share in the EU. On the contrary, they are more skeptical of the government, which, according to the Eurobarometer, is trusted by 29.1 percent of Czechs on average over the last ten years, which is the 16th highest share in the EU. However, according to more recent data from the Center for Public Opinion Research from this February, current trust in the government is below the long-term average. According to them, 20 percent of the population trusts the government.
“Current trust in the government is relatively very low, although it is not the lowest historically. But if we do not count the short-term episodes usually associated with immediately culminating government or coalition crises, basically only the government of Petr Nečas in 2012 and 2013 fared even worse than the current government of Petr Fiala,” said Jan Červenka, an analyst at the Center for Public Opinion Research. The latest drop in trust in the government began with the arrival of covid-19 during the time of Andrej Babiš’s (ANO) cabinet, which was followed by the energy crisis and high inflation under Fial’s government.
The worst of the indicators of solidarity was the Czech perception of corruption. According to the organization Transparency International, which has been monitoring the issue for a long time, the Czech Republic achieved the 12th worst score in the EU in terms of the perception of corruption, namely 57 points out of 100, with a higher value corresponding to less corruption.
