Czech press survey – April 3
Energy is definitely one of the issues Czech-German Prague talks will aim at. no one would say it officially, but Germany dislikes the Czech plan to extend the Temelin nuclear power plant, south Bohemia, while Prague dislikes the German wind turbines burdening the Czech energy distribution system to the brink of blackout, Honzejk writes.
The Czech-German tension in this area, though only slight, shows that the EU does not work in the important energy industry area. Individual states pursue their particular interests without any limitations, Honzejk writes.
A pre-condition of single energy policy is the EU countries´ agreement on energy security. the reality is quite different, however. the Czechs mock the anti-nuclear Germans, saying the latter expect a tsunami to arise on the Rhine, while the Germans and Austrians view the Czechs as irresponsible “gamblers” risking a disaster similar to Chernobyl, Honzejk writes.
On a wider level, the EU has supported the construction of the Nabucco gas pipeline, independent of Russia, while some EU states parallelly cooperate with Russia´s Gazprom on a rival pipeline South Stream, Honzejk states.
Angela Merkel´s assertions that Germany would not interfere with its its neighbours´ respective energy policies and that after the Fukushima disaster it became clear to her and most Germans that it would pay to abandon nuclear energy as quickly as possible are incompatible with each other, Lenka Zlamalova writes in Lidove noviny.
If someone is afraid of atom, it makes no difference if a nuclear power plant is located in his homeland or a few hundreds of kilometres behind the border. That is why Merkel expects German politicians not only to switch off German reactors but also to make their nuclear neighbours follow the suit, Zlamalova writes.
This is where delicate politics starts. the Germans will not exert direct pressure on anyone but they will be trying to inconspicuously thwart atom via European policy, Zlamalova writes.
She says the first version of nuclear power plants´ resistance tests, proposed by the German commissioner for energy, was quite tough. True, exerting pressure for the highest possible safety is substantiated, but it will be hard to distinguish whether the pressure has turned into a latent blockade of atom, Zlamalova writes.
The price of safety can be pushed to a height where it will not pay in economic terms, through which a nuclear-free Europe would be achieved, Zlamalova says.
In Mlada fronta Dnes, commentator Martin Komarek says there are lots of Czech politicians who completed their university studies suspiciously quickly and whose dissertations are plagiarisms, but it occurs to none of them to leave his/her post, as Hungarian president Pal Schmitt did on Monday.
The latest case of a suspicious dissertation is that of Jana Nagyova, PM Petr Necas´s crucial aide at the Government Office. Neither she nor Necas seem to worry about the controversial dissertation being unveiled by the media, Komarek writes.
The Faculty of Law of the West Bohemian University has even lost not only its good reputation but also its accreditation over the suspicious quick studies of prominent personalities. However, most of the “graduates” could keep their academic titles along with their political posts, Komarek writes.
Compared with the Hungarians, the advantage of Czechs is that Czech President Vaclav Klaus gained his academic titles honestly and is an expert in his branch [economy]. Pocketing of small items at state visits abroad is not condemned as strictly as academic plagiarism, fortunately, Komarek concludes in an ironic allusion to the pocketing of a protocol pen by Klaus while on a visit to Chile last year.
Author: ?TKwww.ctk.cz
Tags: energy distribution, energy industry, energy policies, gas pipeline, nuclear power plant, south stream
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