How to steal Radio Free Europe

Foreign Min. Jan Lipavský (ind.) and EU Affairs Min. Martin Dvořák (STAN) are leading a Czech effort to take over the funding of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, now that Donald Trump has pulled the plug. Czech ministers are holding talks in typical Munich style - about Trump without Trump - by ignoring the legal status of RFE/RL and the requirement that it promote U.S. foreign-policy objectives. What the ministers are really talking about is a hostile takeover, something a few Czechs - Petr Kellner, Radovan Vítek, Andrej Babiš, Daniel Křetínský - have excelled at. In this specific case, the best approach might be offered by deceased Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky, who questioned why you should privatize a factory when you can privatize its director. RFE in Prague is actually a branch of RFE/RL, Inc., of Delaware, so all the ministers need to do is privatize the local director and then leave the rest to Czech notaries, judges and the Constitutional Court. They always know what to do.