Final Word from Thursday, April 24, 2008
It's become almost trite to note that ODS alternately invokes or spurns the EU, depending on which approach suits its purpose. It wants the EU reform treaty to be evaluated for its adherence to the Czech Constitution, for example, but it objects to a Constitutional Court ruling on sick pay by saying it's common EU practice to deny coverage for the first few days of illness. Suddenly, the actual wording of the Czech Constitution isn't so important to it anymore. What's more worrisome, though, is the thought that the Constitutional Court might adopt this same sort of EU expediency. The Court struck down the sick-pay provision and upheld the squeeze-out rules, despite differing EU practices, but there are signs that the Court will uphold the controversial health fees, in part because they're common in Europe. The result of this is that Czechs don't really know which laws are ultimately governing them.[Czech Republic European Union sickness insurance expedient majority owners minority]
Glossary of difficult words
expediency - adherence to self-serving means, doing what is in one's self-interest at the moment;
trite - lacking originality or freshness;
alternately - proceeding by turns;
to invoke - to cite something or someone as an authority;
to scorn - to reject something in a contemptuous way;
squeeze-out - rules allowing 90% owners of a company to force the remaining owners to sell at a price set by an appraiser working for the 90% owners.