Czech politician Andrej Babiš came one step closer to becoming Czechia’s prime minister on Monday, when he signed a coalition agreement with the far-right SPD and right-wing Motorists For Themselves parties.
As per AFP, the Czech billionaire and his allies promised to push for a “different Europe” when he clinched the deal. Between them, the three coalition parties hold 108 of 200 parliamentary seats.
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Babiš – who served as Czechia’s prime minister from 2017-2021 – is chair of the populist ANO party, which won the largest share of the vote in the country’s Oct. 3-4 parliamentary elections. Czech President Petr Pavel subsequently asked him to form a government.
In a statement, the newly-formed coalition said that Europe should be “a self-confident union of sovereign national states cooperating where it makes sense while keeping freedom in issues that are exclusively theirs.”
Babiš is expected to appoint his cabinet later this month.
The Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD) party, led by Tomio Okamura, is broadly opposed to the EU. In the wake of Britain’s 2015 vote against remaining part of the bloc, Okamura called for a similar referendum in Czechia. The SPD party won 15 seats in last month’s elections.
The Motorists, who claim to represent the interests of car owners, ran on a platform of opposing environmentalism. This necessarily means opposing the EU’s plan to phase out fossil fuel vehicles by 2035. They secured 13 seats.
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Unsurprisingly, the coalition announced on Monday that they opposed the country’s longstanding plan to adopt the euro and would not take steps to implement it while in power.
On Ukraine, they were more non-committal. “We will support diplomatic steps leading to the termination of the war in Ukraine,” their statement said.
Babiš said last month that he would end all government funding to Ukraine if he was reappointed prime minister. Last week, it was reported that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban is considering attempting to form an anti-Ukraine alliance within the EU by strengthening ties with Czechia and Slovakia.
As per Politico, only one barrier remains between him and the position of prime minister – a vote of confidence in his newly-formed government by Czech lawmakers within the next 30 days.