After POLITICO reached out to Babiš and his ANO party for comment, his right-hand man, ANO Vice Chair Karel Havlíček, replied that “it’s nonsense” to say the party has moved toward the far right.
“ANO always has been and remains a catch-all party,” Havlíček said. “We are still the same. What has changed is that some politicians have lost their self-reflection and stopped perceiving reality … I think it is legitimate to have a different opinion than the EU leadership and there is no need to immediately ostracize those people.”
Petr Pavel, the country’s pro-European president who won the presidential race against Babiš in 2023, will prove a hindrance to the tycoon if he overtly tries to turn Czechia eastward. Ultimately, however, the Czech presidency does not have executive powers, leaving political leeway for the prime minister.
A cobbled-together coalition among Babiš and Czech far-right parties like Freedom and Direct Democracy or Oath and Motorists would allow him to do “what he sees fit in foreign and European policy,” according to Petr Kaniok, director of the International Institute of Political Science at Masaryk University in Brno.
“The government would certainly be at least rhetorically similar to the current Slovak one — anti-EU, more nationalist, less pro-Ukrainian and passive … The Czech Republic would simply stop doing today’s relatively constructive politics and return to Babiš’ understanding of the EU as an ATM,” Kaniok said.
No EU membership for Ukraine
While the EU appears ambivalent about the recent surge by far-right populist forces around the continent, the growing Moscow-friendly bloc will make it more difficult to reach consensus on questions like aid to Ukraine, sanctions against Russia or migration.
There are already some signs about what kind of politics ANO would adopt toward Ukraine, the critical foreign policy issue facing Europe as Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion approaches its three-year anniversary.
