Visegrad energy meetings

Every recent major crisis has led to tighter government control of the people and to increased influence over the Western economy by multinational companies, primarily those dominated by U.S. institutional investors. This will no doubt be one of the results of the Iran crisis as well, except that in the case of the motor-fuel price increases in the CR, most of the main players happen to be from the Visegrad/Slavkov group. There's the U.K. interloper Shell, but otherwise the countries represented are Austria (OMV), the CR (Čepro), Hungary/Slovakia (MOL) and Poland (PKN Orlen). PM Andrej Babiš has so far treated the foreign operators as adversaries who are at times charging what he calls excessive margins. He could instead treat the meetings with them as Visegrad/Slavkov consultations and the local executives as energy ambassadors. If the Visegrad/Slavkov countries can't work together on the crucial issue of energy, Babiš might as well just follow in Petr Fiala's footsteps and shut the regional collaboration down.