Czech President demands explanations from billionaire Andrei Babis before appointing him as prime minister
Petr Pavel, Photo: AA/ABACA / Abaca Press / Profimedia
The president of the Czech Republic, Petr Pavel, said on Wednesday that the billionaire Andrej Babis, winner of the elections, must explain to the electorate how he will avoid the conflict of interests with his businesses, before being appointed prime minister, reports Reuters, taken over by Agerpres.
Babis's populist ANP party won the October 3-4 parliamentary elections and forms a government alongside two smaller right-wing parties as partners.
The 71-year-old billionaire said he would comply with the law governing the business interests of members of the government, but did not explain how he would do so. The problem becomes an obstacle for his return to power after four years in opposition, the cited agency appreciates.
The presidential chancellery showed in a statement that the nomination of Babis as prime minister without a clear statement on this subject could be unconstitutional and could lead to the loss of funding from the European Union.
After meeting with Pavel on Wednesday, Babis promised to study the materials on this topic received from the president, but did not reveal how he would proceed.
Government agreement with deeply Eurosceptic parties in the Czech Republic. “The two members of the Babiš coalition will not only be pro-Russia, but probably also pro-China”
As a businessman, Babis owns hundreds of companies – most of them part of the Agrofert group – in agriculture, food processing, chemical industry, health and others, in the Czech Republic and in other European countries. Many of the companies benefit from local and EU subsidies for farmers, calculated according to the area of land or the number of animals they own; some also received subsidies for modernization and money from public contracts.
The corruption monitoring organization Transparency International believes that in order to clearly delimit himself from business activity, either Babis should sell his companies or they should no longer conclude public contracts. The alternative would be for the tycoon not to be part of the government.
In his first term as prime minister, in 2017-2021, Babis faced legal problems and a European investigation into possible conflicts of interest. He then moved his assets to trust funds, but a court and the European Commission judged that the approach was insufficient.
