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Lidovky.cz

Slovak PM Fico seeks Czech-Slovak rail cargo firm

Evropa

  15:57

Slovak prime minister calls for Czech-Slovak rail freight company, backs JV nuclear reactor

Slovenský premiér Robert Fico podepsal loni v listopadu se svým českým protějškem Jiřím Rusnokem smlouvu o uznání rovnocenného vzdělávání foto: ©Czech Government OfficeČeská pozice

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico (SMER-SD) has resurrected the possibility of creating a joint Czech–Slovak rail freight company from the current two state-controlled companies.

Speaking on his first trip abroad following his left-of-center party’s decisive election victory in March elections, Fico said that a merger of Czech rail freight company ČD Cargo and its Slovak counterpart ZSSK would be beneficial to both. “If we were able to create a joint company it would basically have a better chance of surviving on the regional market where we are,” Fico said. “We will start the process and see where it goes.”

The center-left politician had advanced similar plan for a joint Czech-Slovak rail cargo company during his first term as prime minister from 2006-2010.

Czech Prime Minister Petr Nečas (Civic Democrat, ODS), dogged by a fresh crisis within his coalition that threatens to spark early elections, did not comment on the idea during the two leaders’ joint news conference on Friday.

‘If we were able to create a joint company it would basically have a better chance of surviving on the regional market where we are.’

ČD Cargo, the fifth-biggest cargo carrier in the EU, is reported by Czech media to be seeking expansion in Hungary and Austria having already launched national operations targeting freight markets in Poland and Slovakia. It is also seeking to win a higher profile for its activities in Central Europe.

Central European alliances and mergers among freight operators have already been raised in the past. A possible purchase of a shareholding by ČD Cargo of a stake in its Polish counterpart, PKP Cargo, in mid-2011 reportedly fell through due to Polish parliamentary elections.

Czech businessman billionaire Zdeňek Bakala was reported in the Slovak press as eying a stake in Slovakia’s ZSSK but that was during the reign of the previous center-right government. Fico’s arrival in power and aversion for the sell-off of state assets means any such deal has probably hit the buffers.

The EU has pushed ahead with steps aimed at promoting competition between European rail freight companies with any operator given the theoretical right to pick up and deliver goods from the start of 2007. It has since been trying to fine tune its liberalization measures by removing ongoing barriers and introducing new concepts such as fast freight corridors, aimed at allowing the rapid transport of time sensitive goods.

Nuclear JV

Fico also voiced his support for Slovak–Czech plan to build a new nuclear reactor at Slovakia’s Jaslovské Bohunice site. The idea of plans for a reactor being drawn up as a joint venture between Slovak state nuclear company JAVYS and Czech state-controlled electricity company ČEZ was hatched during Fico’s previous government but was given tepid backing by the successor government of prime minister Iveta Radičová.

A feasibility study into the prospects for the joint venture reactor should be completed by the end of this year, according to ČEZ managers. The Czech power company now appears to have problems raising the financing for two new reactors at its Temelín site in South Bohemia let alone part financing of a new reactor in Slovakia.

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