Industry versus the Czech ERÚ: Politicians reap what they sowed

Anyone even slightly familiar with the professional background of Alena Vitásková, the current head of the Energy Regulatory Office (ERÚ), cannot be in the least surprised by the current developments at the authority.

More specifically, they cannot be surprised by the development of the authority’s dispute with the Ministry of Industry and Trade over the announcement of support for renewable energy sources commissioned between 2005 and 2012.

Vitásková is right, but…

The situation that has arisen is merely further proof of Ms Vitásková’s highly specific way of running the authority – somewhat spectacular, somewhat arrogant, often extreme and aggressive, yet always presented with professional experience and appealingly concealed behind the public interest. But Alena Vitásková is right.

It is primarily the Ministry of Industry that has long been failing in the matter of the notification of renewable energy support. There is no doubt that this support should have been approved by the European Commission long ago. It has not been.

The previous Minister of Industry and Trade already claimed that it was a matter of months, but that did not happen. Can we now fully trust Minister Mládek that it will indeed happen as early as February next year? Hardly.

A different question is how credible this “truth” of the ERÚ head is given the authority’s previous stance. The weakness of her position lies in the fact that in previous years, under exactly the same conditions, she always announced the support. But the situation has changed fundamentally for the ERÚ head since those years.

Tough businesswoman vs civil servant

She is currently facing a clear political effort to remove her quickly, well before the end of her regular term in 2017. If an amendment to the Energy Act is not approved by the Chamber of Deputies by the end of the year, the Civil Service Act will also apply to the ERÚ.

Given the current charges against Ms Vitásková, that would mean her immediate end. She evidently feels personally threatened. And what about the politicians? If the government in the past appointed an experienced, hard-nosed businesswoman to head a state authority, can it be surprised by her behaviour today? No.

In other words, the dispute has escalated and both sides are playing the “highest” possible cards. Action generates reaction. Unfortunately, the hostages are the owners of power plants as well as district heating plants, for whom the failure to announce support could cause at least unpleasant cash-flow problems. Nevertheless, I have no doubt that they will ultimately receive their money.

And now let us return to the beginning of this commentary. The first, and perhaps fundamental, mistake was already made by Petr Nečas’s government in 2011, when it appointed an experienced energy professional/businesswoman with perhaps excessive ambitions and a desire to make a name for herself in the role as head of the authority.

From a personnel perspective, the position would undoubtedly have been far better suited to an impartial, technically skilled and experienced “civil servant” in the best sense of the term.

Michal Šnobr, the text was originally published on HlidaciPes.org