Final Word from Tuesday, September 20, 2022
Industry Min. Jozef Síkela (STAN) told Die Welt that his chief interest is for the CR to become completely independent of Russian raw materials. Not for the CR and its industrial base to be prepared for a full cut-off of Russian supplies, mind you, but to achieve independence first and then to deal with the consequences. It's the end that interests him, not the process of how to get their safely. The parallel in covid terms was the Health First declaration of the Babiš government that led to lockdowns, shutdowns and business failures because epidemiologists initially treated the coronavirus as a scourge that threatened everyone equally. Large companies tended to embrace covidism, in part because they saw it as a way to thin out their financially weaker competitors. If anyone complained, it was the little guys who saw their life's work going up in smoke. Small businesses that managed to survive are now experiencing déjà vu as energy prices threaten their existence. They've been here before, but some large companies are in a state of denial. They simply can't believe that the Fiala government is serious about deindustrialization. [ Czech Republic Petr Germany Andrej deindustrialize ]
Glossary of difficult words
denial - refusal to acknowledge an unacceptable truth or emotion or to admit it into consciousness, used as a defense mechanism;
mind you - used in speech to give stress to a statement so that a preceding or following statement will not be misunderstood;
scourge - a person or thing that causes great trouble or suffering;
to thin (out) - to make or become less dense, crowded or numerous;
to go up in smoke - to be shattered or ruined.