A few hours before the passage of the 2025 national budget in the lower house of Parliament yesterday, Chief Economist David Marek of Deloitte told Czech TV that if the proposal isn't changed, his position on it will remain negative. He insisted that he's acting strictly professionally and apolitically as an adviser to Pres. Petr Pavel in criticizing four key line items worth Kč 43bn. Ex-CNB Gov. Miroslav Singer told Czech TV earlier in the day that this budget doesn't particularly stand out from past budgets and that he sees the debate about the roughly Kč 40bn in questionable items more as a by-product of the approaching parliamentary elections than as a real budget issue. Now that the 2025 budget has been passed and moves to the Castle, the political question comes squarely to the fore. It should start becoming clearer why David Marek, Deloitte and others with influence over the president have decided to help the opposition by making such a big deal out of a humdrum Kč 40bn.