Petr Hladik is the KDU-CSL nominee to become the new Czech environment minister. Photo credit: Petr Hladik, via Facebook.
Prague, Oct 18 (CTK) – Czech President Milos Zeman has cancelled his Thursday meeting with Petr Hladik, the Christian Democrat (KDU-CSL) candidate for environment minister, complying with a request from KDU-CSL leader Marian Jurecka to the Presidential Office after a police raid at the Brno City Hall.
Hladik is currently a Deputy Mayor of Brno. During the raid at Brno City Hall yesterday, related to suspected corruption regarding the distribution of municipal flats, the police asked Hladik, among others, for access to his office and asked him to provide some explanations.
Jurecka, the Labour and Social affairs minister and a Deputy PM, told journalists in Prague that he considered it important for all KDU-CSL representatives in the cabinet to be unburdened by any doubts or scandals.
He said Hladik was not clinging to his appointment as minister, as he was aware of the serious nature of a police inquiry into a corruption case in Brno, and did not want to burden the cabinet either.
Jurecka said that by putting off the meeting between Zeman and Hladik, he wanted to gain time to consider all the circumstances.
He said Hladik faced no charges and is cooperating with the police. The wider KDU-CSL leadership will discuss the party’s nomination of Hladik for minister on Thursday, Jurecka said.
During his visit to north Bohemia, Zeman said that he did not have to evaluate Hladik’s competence as a possible new minister because the nomination had been withdrawn, according to information from Jurecka and Fiala.
KDU-CSL denied this. Jurecka said the president wrongly understood his request to cancel the meeting as the withdrawal of Hladik’s nomination. A KDU-CSL spokeswoman told CTK that the nomination was still in force.
Jurecka said Hladik will study the written documents he has obtained from the police and will inform his party colleagues about their content. The party will then decide how to proceed further with his nomination, and Jurecka will inform PM Petr Fiala (ODS) about the result.
Fiala told CTK that he would not comment on the situation before assessing the situation. He will also wait for the result of the KDU-CSL meeting on Thursday, he said.
“This is a new situation and we need to find out all available information and analyse everything,” Fiala wrote to CTK.
KDU-CSL previously chose Hladik as the replacement for Anna Hubackova (KDU-CSL) who stepped down as environment minister citing health reasons.
Zeman was to meet Hladik on Thursday before appointing him minister.
Jurecka said he asked for the Zeman-Hladik meeting to be put off so that there is enough time to consider all circumstances. On the other hand, it is nonetheless necessary to decide on the new minister quickly, especially in the context of the ongoing Czech presidency of the EU. The Czech environment minister is supposed to leave for Brussels on Sunday to chair a meeting of EU environment ministers, he said.
The police detained ten people during the raid at the Brno City Hall yesterday. They are investigating the operation of a municipal company, the privatisation of municipal-owned flats, and suspected subsidy fraud committed in Brno.
