Final Word from Wednesday, June 18, 2008
It didn't make it into this morning's Czech papers, but ex-Slovak Finance Minister Ivan Mikloš accused J&T and Istrokapital of using inside information to make hundreds of millions of crowns on the recent revaluation of the Slovak crown. J&T and other 1990s-era financial groups are said to be trying to gain respectability, but a report like this makes one wonder, esp. after the way PM Mirek Topolánek was off playing golf with a J&T official recently in Italy. Another Slovak financial group, Penta, was accused by Slovak PM Robert Fico in 2006 of offering him a bribe for the privatization of the local airport. Both J&T and Penta are now interested in Prague Airport. If the runway deal and privatization don't go through while the airport is still hot, the backup plan should perhaps be to return to the idea of seizing the runway land commandeered by Penta while it was still in its pre-respectability mode.[Czech Republic Slovakia Bratislavia euro adoption trading band confiscation eminent domain]
Glossary of difficult words
veneer - a thin layer; something that gives an item an attractive but superficial appearance;
1990s-era - a term sometimes used as a way to suggest that the practices common in the 1990s are no longer being used today;
runway - Penta owns land needed for a new runway, and it paid very little for it;
to commandeer - to take control or possession of something without authority.