At least coffee 93, or We have a new government.

On Monday, December 13, President Pavel appointed a new government. The date is certainly strange from a numerological point of view. The number 13 does not have a very good reputation. However, my personal experience is completely different. It was on June 13 that I successfully passed my high school graduation exam. That is why I would like to wish myself and the whole country that the number 13 would be as memorable as it was for me.
We have a new government, and the prime minister has begun to introduce new ministers to their offices. The first event to disrupt this was when Greenpeace activists climbed onto the roof of the Ministry of the Environment building and hung a banner on its facade. They hung themselves from ropes attached to the banner. The police tried to get them down, but most people thought they should have been left hanging there. On the contrary, they should not have been allowed to come down. But this raises one question: how is it possible for any intruder to get onto the roof of a government building in the first place? This is all the more serious because it may not always be just crazy activists, but also terrorists who could carry out any life-threatening act. A proper investigation is needed to find out who actually failed. Whether it was the security guards or the outgoing Minister Hladík, who was warming up twice as fast. And they should be punished in an exemplary manner. Nothing should be more untouchable than a government building. But we will have to wait for the full results of the investigation, if there is one, and there should be.
We have a new government, and many people expect miracles from it. But they are just fools, because only God can perform miracles. The first thing the ministers will have to do is conduct in-depth audits of individual departments to determine their actual state. Another task will be to create a truly adequate budget that does not pretend to be anything it is not and shows the real state of public finances. After all, the outgoing minister, Stanjura, was also a master of miracles. But in reality, he was merely a conjurer, skilled at manipulating both money and people.
There is no point in analyzing individual ministries now, even though most of them are likely to have some skeletons in the closet. Overpriced defense contracts and ill-considered purchases will surely be exposed soon. After all, the problems with Leopard tanks are commonly discussed openly. The tanks are heavier than any of our equipment can carry. And given their weight, transporting them on roads is extremely difficult. Many bridges would not be able to withstand their weight. Pontoon bridges are also insufficient, and no one is able to manufacture the wagons that could transport them.
We could go through each ministry in this way, and one problem after another would pile up. The only ministry that leaves a positive mark is transport. There, they have really succeeded in both investing and preparing a lot of construction projects.
So we have a new government. But let's not expect all its promises to be fulfilled right away in the New Year. If at least half of them are fulfilled over the course of four years, we can consider it a success. Nothing can be done overnight; everything takes a lot of time and sometimes even laws or decrees. That's just how governing works. For example, pensioners should not expect any changes right away in the new year. The government will have to work within the framework of a botched, albeit revised, budget, which was left behind as an unfortunate legacy of the magician Stanjura.
The first regular government meeting was devoted to the most important promises: not introducing ETS emission allowances, rejecting the migration pact forcing countries to accept redistributed refugees, and returning self-employed people's contributions to this year's level. And also the rejection of the theft of frozen Russian assets, especially in Belgian and French banks. With this, the prime minister is heading to his first official European Council meeting. He can already be sure of support from the Poles, Slovaks, and Hungarians. They share the same positions.
The positions of other ministers are also provoking irritated reactions from the defeated. Pirate Party leader Bartoš is actively speaking out, even assessing the qualifications of individual ministers for their respective offices. From a librarian in local development, who was in the government alongside an electrician in finance and a theologian in the Ministry of Agriculture, this is a really apt reminder. Especially when, on the contrary, the current government includes people who certainly know much more about the field in question than the entire previous government put together.
Members of TOP09 are upset that Minister Vojtěch will take money from the General Health Insurance Company to help smaller health insurance companies, which former Minister Válek deprived of that money. Simply by failing to fulfill the task he was given during the year, namely to draft a reimbursement decree. A task that is binding on the minister.
Meanwhile, student protests are being organized against the results of democratic elections. The very elections that students and a large part of the population demonstrated for in 1989.
These are paradoxes, Mr. Vaněk...
Oh well. Let's have some coffee and see what happens next.