During the period of this chapter, the Slovak oligarchs showed nervousness. Fico’s hegemony had grown over his head, and international pressure was mounting to investigate the numerous corruption cases that Smer-SD governments had successfully played into the hands of for practically a decade. While the heat was on in Slovakia, a similar type of politician to Fico – Babiš – was on a winning campaign in the Czech Republic. This is also why several of Slovakia’s best-known names have begun to consider the Czech Republic as a new homeland.
High taxes, tightening business legislation, but also the media’s description of their controversial background and tarnished reputation, have burned especially those who have been described in connection with corruption but have never been touched by the hand of the law.
With the declining preferences of Robert Fico’s movement, it was not certain that Směr-SD would hold the state in its own hands after the next elections. For many of the sponsors, it was a signal that after more than a decade of hegemony, during which they lived on business with the state and their practices were untouchable, a new era was coming. Several of them responded by moving their business to the Czech Republic.
Something similar happened earlier during the fall of Mečiarism. Back then, many of Vladimír Mečiar’s patrons fled across the Morava River, which is why people like Ladislav Krajňák and Juraj Kamarás (CTY Group), Tomáš Chrenek (Agel, Třinecké železárny) and Ján Moder (Moravia Steel) now have their bases in the Czech Republic.
So far, the latest wave of expansion into the Czech Republic has involved Fico’s sponsors. The first significant one was Milan Fiľo. One of the closest people to ex-prime minister Fico moved the Eco-Invest group from Bratislava to Prague at the end of 2016.
Since the move, all of his group’s activities have been directed to the Czech Republic. For example, the group built a wood products and paper production plant in Štětí. The company has also significantly increased its business activities in the food market. The then fourth richest Slovak merged the Czech and Slovak parts of the Eco-Invest group. This created the Eco Investment Group.
Whether he sees only market advantages in the Czech Republic can be doubted. It is known that in Slovakia he is fighting a long-standing dispute with his former employees. In the past, Eco-Invest privatised 67 per cent of the shares in the state-owned paper company SCP Ružomberok. According to Ružomberský papier, Fiľo failed to issue 15 percent of the shares to employees, which he should have committed to do in the privatisation contract. MPs and activists have launched several lawsuits and have also pressed the Ministry of Economy to resolve the employees’ claim once and for all, as the government has kept the privatisation contract secret for many years, based on an agreement with the investor.
According to Filova’s investment group, the employees’ claim is merely a legal attack by people who were associated with the privatisation and want to extract new capital from it. However, the weakening position of the partners in politics has increased fears about the future. Moreover, Fil’s companies have been repeatedly criticised in the media for excessive state contracts.
The oligarch began his business with the state in the 1990s by supporting Vladimír Mečiar’s HZDS. He claimed to have made his first capital from the mineral trade. However, since he privatised the paper group, under which 50 companies are owned, he has enjoyed unusual subsidy support. This has increased since Fico came to power. Fiľo is said to be one of his most important sponsors. Fiľo’s managers have even appeared in high-ranking state positions.
Among other things, Fiľo bought the Prague musical theatre Hybernia, where he likes to play the role of a patron of the arts. He also invites the Czech political elite to kitsch entertainment events and more than once enjoys the company of Andrej Babiš and his wife. Fiľo sponsored Miloš Zeman’s campaigns, for which the Czech head of state awarded him a decoration.
The fate of another of Směr-SD’s key sponsors, Vladimír Poor, is similar. The new shareholder of Poór’s company City-arena PLUS is the Czech company EMX Plus CZ1, which is controlled by another company, EMX Plus Holding. It is to be owned by the Slovak company Euro MAX Slovakia Plus. This company belongs to Vladimír Poór. It was a harbinger that Poór was lifting the anchors from under the Tatras. Later it was confirmed that he was not only moving his business to Prague, but he himself was moving to the hundred-year-old mother country.
Vladimír Poór is a personal friend of Robert Fico. He has prospered especially in the engineering sector, where his companies supply wagons for state railway companies. However, the owner of Spartak Trnava also received a subsidy for the construction of a football stadium in Trnava. Fico’s government agreed to 13 million euros (about 335 million crowns); Poór, however, also built a shopping centre alongside the stadium. According to the publication Vlastní hlavou, he also benefited from money allocated by the Education Ministry to the Sládkovič University. Poór’s company CellQoS was to supply overpriced computers there.
Juraj Široký, who has been described as one of the founders of the Smer-SD party, also moved money to the Czech Republic. On 25 July 2016, the Czech company Helston Investments acquired an almost 30 percent stake in Široký’s Váhostav, which it took over from the New Zealand shell company Beacon Holdings. It turned out that Helston also controls Široký, which it had long kept secret.
Interestingly, all of the migrant oligarchs belong to the group that switched to support Robert Fico from Vladimir Mečiar’s HZDS. While Široký or Fiľo sponsored the movement, Kamarás was a member of the presidium of the National Property Fund during Mečiar’s first government, Krajňák was on the HZDS candidate list and sat on the supervisory board of the Slovak Gas Industry. Vladimír Poór was even the regional chairman of Mečiar’s party.
