Final Word from Wednesday, May 14, 2025

Foreign Min. Jan Lipavský acknowledged on CNN Prima News on Sun. that partial public control of ČEZ can have its disadvantages with regard to building new reactors at Dukovany because of the need for approval from Brussels, but he added that the CR has always coped successfully with this. The EU notification for the sixth reactor there is almost the same as for the fifth reactor, he said, so there's no reason to think that it won't go through too. Yet when he said this, the Fiala government already knew that the notification for the fifth reactor would need to be repeated because of a change in the investor model (as reported yesterday by oEnergetice.cz and confirmed by the industry ministry). This could mean another lengthy delay. If Lipavský didn't know this, it probably means the right hand in the cabinet doesn't know what the left hand is doing. One upside is that it isn't Germany's junior EU commissioner, Jozef Síkela, who is handling the notification negotiations for the Czech side this time. [ Czech Republic Europe Union (ind.) Terezie Tománková ]