Czech president to appoint Babis as PM on Tuesday; Okamura goes to Slovakia

The post-election talks continued apace throughout the week in Czechia, with President Petr Pavel announcing he would appoint the winner of the election, Andrej Babis, after the latter resolved his conflicts of interest related to his Agrofert conglomerate, which receives public subsidies. “I have decided to irrevocably give up the Agrofert company, with which I will no longer have anything to do, I will never own it, I will not have any economic relations with it, and I will not be in any contact with it,” Babis was quoted as saying. Alongside this was the process of the incoming three-party coalition’s ministerial nominees making their way to Prague Castle to meet with President Pavel. While Pavel reportedly expressed a few reservations with parts of the program pushed by some of the candidates, talks appeared to have been held in an open and consensual manner, and no presidential pushback is really expected against any of ANO’s candidates. Next came trickier talks with the nominees of Babis’s coalition partners, the far-right SPD and conservative Motorists. As per the agreement, the SPD sent “non-partisan” experts to meet with Pavel as nominees for the ministries of transport, agriculture and defence; SPD leader Tomio Okamura already took up his post of speaker of the Chamber of Deputies last month. Talks reached their peak on Thursday as the president met with Motorist chairman and possible next foreign minister Petr Macinka to discuss not only his own agenda but also the fate of Motorist figurehead Filip Turek, whose nomination to the government, regardless of the post or portfolio, Pavel has been blocking for weeks over growing controversies about the former MEP. Turek said he hoped to meet with the president to explain his position.

Turek was pleading his case from Slovakia this week, where he was part of a nine-member parliamentary delegation on a two-day visit led by the recently elected speaker Tomio Okamura, chairman of SPD. In Bratislava with the declared goal of breathing new life into stalled relations between the two countries and showcasing agreement on key topics and opposition to flagship EU policies, Okamura met with his counterpart and head of the Slovak parliament Richard Rasi, as well as PM Robert Fico and President Peter Pellegrini. During the friendly visit, both sides expressed their desire to reinstate high-level intergovernmental relations – interrupted by the Czech government of Petr Fiala over Slovakia’s stance on Ukraine and Russia – as quickly as possible. “This is a gesture and a promise that we want to quickly restore the above-standard relations between the two countries,” Okamura said. The trip, however, faced criticism at home for only including, contrary to what is customary, members of the incoming coalition and excluding MPs from the previous coalition who are now in opposition. “I cannot imagine that my delegation would include someone who has destroyed relations with Slovakia,” Okamura said. Denouncing such a stand a “big political mistake”, representatives of the five parties now part of the parliamentary minority are planning their own trip to Bratislava, possibly as soon as next week.