Spies, lies and privatize

Whether active-duty Czech spies were involved in snooping on ex-PM Mirek Topolánek and a group of ČEZmen in Tuscany is interesting, but it's only of secondary importance. More interesting, as ex-intelligence chief Karel Randák hinted on Radio Impuls yesterday, would be whether Russian spies were involved. Still more interesting, however, is whether the politicians, lobbyists and ČEZ officials themselves are part of a scheme to "gradually privatize public authority," to borrow Miroslav Kalousek's term. In other words, is this close-knit group of about a dozen people working on illicitly privatizing ČEZ? There's already a mysterious near-10% owner of the utility, as HN and Respekt have noted. Who is this owner? Is it Gazprom? E.ON? PPF? Few Czech officials seem to be concerned about what plans are being hatched. Instead, some of them are obfuscating the issue by chasing spooks. [Czech Republic Eon J&T EP Holding privatization Jan Macháček Hospodářské noviny]