Final Word from Monday, July 13, 2015
Other EU countries consider Greece to be so important that they have their president or prime minister act as their chief spokesman on the eurozone crisis, but Bohuslav Sobotka usually sends his sidekick Tomáš Prouza to do the job. If Sobotka comments himself, it's almost always from a prepared script, so the listener has no idea who actually wrote the text or whether Sobotka has any of his own thoughts on Greece. Prouza is an unelected civil servant who officially serves the cabinet as senior adviser and state secretary for European affairs. He serves the cabinet as a whole, but he openly attacks his deputy prime minister, Andrej Babiš, on Twitter. Babiš has also taken aim at Prouza, telling Právo last month that if Sobotka decides to replace Jan Mládek as industry minister, all of Prague knows which marketing agency will put Prouza into the job. All of Prague knows he was alluding to Bison & Rose. Babiš, who is vice PM, was indicating that his PM's spokesman for Greece and other issues is a stooge for a PR agency. Shouldn't the entire cabinet take a position on this? [Czech Republic ANO ČSSD Greek eurozone crisis]
Glossary of difficult words
sidekick - a person's assistant or close associate, esp. one who has less authority than that person;
script - the written text of a play, movie, etc.
to take aim at someone - to focus on someone;
to allude to - to suggest or call attention to indirectly;
stooge - a person who serves merely to support or assist others, particularly in doing unpleasant work.