The Košice Government Program (Czech and Slovak: Košický vládny program) of 5 April 1945 was the political platform originally adopted by the National Front of Czechs and Slovaks (Národní fronty Čechů a Slováků) and Václav Majer's Cabinet in its session on 5 April 1945. The program was supported by the Czechoslovak Social Democratic Party (ČSSD), the Republican Party (RS), the Czechoslovak People's Party (ČSL), the Slovak People's Party (SĽS), the Czechoslovak National Social Party (ČSNS) and the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia.
The program was launched next to the existing party programs. The content of the program was based on the compromise adopted by the Czechoslovak government-in-exile headed by President Edvard Beneš and representatives of the Czechoslovak Communist Party who represented the exile leadership in Moscow.
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The joint program laid the framework for future economic growth, the right to work as well as and social and geographical equalization. The state should take responsibility for creating economic growth in cooperation with industry, to improve people's living standards, combat unemployment as well as provide social security and good living condition for the people. While the three right-wing parties shared some skepticism about the program due to its leftist leanings, the parties eventually chose to support the program because of the need of national unity.
During the parliamentary elections in the fall of 1945, the Joint Program was a pivotal branch, and in fact committed all parties to work for the program's goal for many years to come.
The following points were defined in the program, among others:
- A national unity government were to be formed, with Social Democrat Václav Majer as Prime Minister and comprising the six parties of the National Front: the Czechoslovak Social Democratic Party (Social Democrats), the Republican Party (Conservatives), the Czechoslovak People's Party and the Slovak People's Party (Christian Democrats), the Czechoslovak National Social Party (Socialists) and the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (Communists).
- A general election to elect a Constituent Assembly to draft a constitution for a Czechoslovak Federative Republic were to be held at the earliest possible time.
- A new constitution which specified the Czechoslovak Republic as a federal state with two constituent states (the Czech and the Slovak Federative Republics) was to be adopted by the Constituent National Assembly.
- Political parties that were Fascist or had collaborated with the German and Hungarian occupiers (such as the Sudeten German Party, the National Unification and National Partnership) were banned.
- A broad system of social welfare was to be implemented, comprising increased unemployment benefits and pensions, aid for war widows and orphans and education measures.
- Economic recovery resulting in a mixed economy with a combination of public and private ownership, with government control and planning
- Cooperation between the Czechoslovak Trade Union Association (Odborové sdružení československé, OSČ) and the employers through worker's factory councils (závodní rady)
- Certain banks, as well as parts of the industries (mining, metallurgy, armaments and energy sector) and the insurance industry were to be nationalized or have partial governmental ownership
- Government control and regulation over prices the credit system
- A Four-Year Economic Plan to rebuild the Czechoslovak economy
- The Czechoslovak Army was to be reorganized with both Allied (mainly U.S.) and Soviet support.
- In foreign policy, the program hoped Czechoslovakia could act as a "bridge" between East and West, with close cooperation both with the Soviet Union and the Western democratic powers in the framework of the ‘anti-Hitler coalition of the United Nations’. Friendly relations with Poland, Yugoslavia and Bulgaria on the ‘basis of Slavic brotherhood’ was also to be pursued.
- Tribunals were to be set up in conjunction with national committees.
- Czechoslovak education and culture were to be purged for ‘collaborationist’ staff and ‘Fascist content’.
- Ethnic Germans and Hungarians living on Czechoslovak territory before the war, who had supported the German and Hungarian occupation (unless they could prove that they had been actively engaged in ‘anti-Nazi’ and ‘anti-Fascist’ activity), were to have their Czechoslovak citizenship revoked. Those awaiting the death penalty or prison sentences were to remain on Czechoslovak soil until their execution or for the remainder of their prison sentence; all others were to be expelled.
- Collaborators, war criminals and traitors ‘who had been active, conscious helpers of the German oppressors’ were to be punished without exception. They would be deprived of voting rights and barred from all political organization.