Final Word from Monday, July 21, 2008
If Chair Martin Pecina of the antitrust office wants to meet with businessmen, wrote Tomáš Němeček of HN on Fri., minutes of the meetings should be taken. Sounds reasonable, but why limit it to Pecina? Imagine the revelatory value of being a fly on the wall when Finance Minister Miroslav Kalousek and Premier Mirek Topolánek met in Prague last Oct. with the U.K.'s richest man, Lakshmi Mittal. This nearly forgotten encounter set in motion negotiations that resulted in an out-of-court settlement in the dispute over Vítkovice Steel. Mittal came out of the brawl with an incredibly sweet deal. In agreeing to sell 11% of ArcelorMittal Ostrava to Mittal for Kč 6.8bn, the Czech side left at least Kč 6 billion on the table, according to an analysis by MFD. Kalousek has been able to do amazing things in the past with much smaller amounts. Drawing attention away from this pot of gold is no doubt one reason he's making such a spectacle of attacking the "buffoons" at Kroll.[Czech Republic United Kingdom MF Dnes Hospodářské noviny]
Glossary of difficult words
minutes - a summarized record of the proceedings of a meeting;
revelatory - revealing something hitherto unknown;
encounter - a meeting;
brawl - a rough or noisy fight or quarrel;
sweet - favorable, advantageous;
Kč 6bn on the table - merely the state's proportional share of retained earnings would be about Kč 3bn;
buffoon - clown, fool.