The shadows of the Czech Parliament

Are you driving safely on the highways? Are you choking at lunchtime on smoke in restaurants? Is it convenient for you to have basic medicines available not just in pharmacies? Has a large shareholder seized your stocks? Are you enthusiastic about registered partnerships? Or does it make you mad that you had to contribute to a CZK 2 billion gift for the richest Czech in the country? All of these stories have one thing in common: They arose thanks to the energy of a species that ensconced itself here at the beginning of the '90s with a couple specimens and gradually multiplied into a populous colony. Their members are easily startled, and few mortals have spotted them, but despite this they influence our lives without us having the slightest idea they exist. It's time to get acquainted. Welcome to the extraordinary world of the Czech lobbyist.

Even though he goes for a walk nearly every Sunday, this time he'd rather stay home. „Today I'm not up for meditation.“ At the door of his apartment, the middle-aged man offers a visitor one hand and holds a cold compress to his head with the other. „I invited an MP to a friend's wine cellar. They have a session now and he must sit in the Chamber of Deputies every day, so I wanted him to let loose. In the end, as you can see, we overdid it a bit.“

In the middle of the next sentence our host unexpectedly stops short and a stern tone slides into his voice. „Not like this,“ he says as both his eyes turn to our mobile…