Final Word from Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto said that you can initiate institutional reforms only if they are championed by the head of state. One of the reasons many Czechs welcome "shared sovereignty" with international institutions is precisely because of the lack of support by their head of state for real reform. Where are these international institutions, though, when corruption threatens - literally - to drive the Czech Republic into bankruptcy? True, the EU antitrust authority raided the offices of ČEZ, but the latest mission of the IMF came and went without a single public mention of the corruption that is crippling the country. The closest the IMF came was to write that "there is scope for improving efficiency of public services delivery and public procurement." To understand what is happening to Euro-American civilization, we must accept that international organizations are facilitating the decline.[Czech Republic International Monetary Fund European Union Václav Klaus]
Glossary of difficult words
to champion - to support the cause of; to defend;
shared sovereignty - the idea that transferring some powers to an international organization does not reduce national sovereignty because some powers become shared;
to raid - to launch a coordinated, unannounced inspection;
to come and go - to arrive and then depart again;
to cripple - to disable, paralyze, incapacitate;
public procurement - purchases by the government.