Collusion at the highest levels

Industry Min. Jozef Síkela announced on Sun. that he had personally approved requests from Sev.en Energy and EPH for loans for covering margin calls on energy exchanges. He will want something in return, he said, perhaps cheap electricity for the public sector. This came four months after Pavel Tykač of Sev.en said that he had offered 3 TWh of cheap electricity to the state. MEP Tomáš Zdechovský of KDU-ČSL, who is one of the ruling coalition's biggest critics of Síkela, says that the minister has been too slow to react to the energy crisis. This same Zdechovský told TV Nova on Aug. 19 that there was definitely a cartel agreement among filling stations and that it was most visible on the uniformly high prices in Prague. If Zdechovský applied this same standard to Síkela's dealings, he might conclude that there was definitely an agreement to delay a decision on "cheap" electricity for the public sector so that Sev.en and EPH could keep enjoying their uniformly high prices for as long as possible.