Until a year ago, Pres. Tomáš Prouza of the SOCR retailers' union was one of the most-frequent guests on Václav Moravec's OVM debate show on Czech TV. Prouza's quarterly appearances began in 2021 and ended shortly before Industry Min. Jozef Síkela (STAN) was tapped last year to become the CR's EU commissioner. Prouza's regular job is to promote the business interests of mostly German-owned retailers, but he also served as an adviser to Síkela, who was in charge as minister of overseeing the regulation of these same retailers through the ČOI retail inspectorate. Moravec gave Prouza a regular pulpit for arguing that retailers weren't responsible for high food prices and weren't cheating consumers. On yesterday's show, Moravec quoted the absent Prouza as saying that higher prices are due to low competition among food processors. Now that Síkela and Prouza are gone from the industry ministry, ČOI's fines against the grocery retailers have inexplicably reached a record level.