The European Commission will carefully examine the situation and any possible conflict of interest if Andrej Babis is again appointed as Czech prime minister, Budget Commissioner Piotr Serafin said at yesterday’s meeting of the European Parliament’s Committee on Budgetary Control (CONT).
The EU’s executive body has dealt repeatedly with ANO leader Babis’s conflict of interest in the past, and ruled that his Agrofert holding had drawn EU subsidies illegally during his engagement in the Czech government, first as the finance minister and then as prime minister (2017-21).
Serafin, the European Commissioner for Budget, Anti-Fraud and Public Administration, responded to a question from one of the participants during a CONT meeting, German MEP Daniel Freund from the Greens. He was asked about the developments in the Czech Republic and the possible conflict of interest of the politician who was likely to be the next Czech PM.
Babis, as head of the victorious ANO movement, is currently negotiating a new coalition government with Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD) and the Motorists.
Monitoring conflicts of interest is a major priority for the European Commission, given the protection of the financial interests of the Union, Serafin said.
If Babis is reappointed the prime minister, the Commission will carefully examine the situation and verify that there is no conflict of interest in his case, Serafin added. He recalled that in the past, the Commission had carried out several audits of the management and control systems introduced by the Czech authorities.
In a prepared statement, Serafin said the EC audit report from 2021 had found that the impartial and objective performance of Babis’s post was threatened by his involvement in decisions that also concerned the Agrofert group, which he owned. The Commission has made a number of financial corrections to remedy this situation, and will continue to monitor the application of the rules on conflicts of interest, he added.
