Final Word from Thursday, September 29, 2022

Two energy experts who took part in yesterday's anti-government protest on Wenceslas Square, Vladimír Štěpán and Ivan Noveský, emphasized the risk to the CR and all of Europe of new arbitration proceedings between Ukraine and Gazprom regarding payments for natural-gas transit. This comes just as the two Nord Stream pipelines were put out of commission by unexplained explosions. The risk, according to Štěpán and Noveský, is that Europe won't even have the Russian gas that is flowing through Ukraine and Slovakia. Yet Interior Min. Vít Rakušan stated again yesterday that the CR has enough gas for the winter. Václav Klaus said in Mladý svět in 1993 that, "A prime minister or finance minister can never lie but can and must lie when it is a matter of currency reform, currency exchange or devaluation." We brought this up twice before in the Final Word, once in 2013 when it was an issue of national security, and again last year with regard to covid. This time we ask whether a PM "can and must lie" when it is a question of energy security, or whether Petr Fiala truly does have a secret stash of natural gas somewhere. [ Czech Republic Ukrainian Czechia First ]