The long foreseeable change in the Czech parliament materialised during the 3-4th October elections. ANO party, a relatively “moderate” far right party led by former prime minister, Andrej Babiš, won almost 35% of votes. The second result belonged to the ruling coalition SPOLU, which with the result of almost 25% of votes. Most probably, ANO will establish a coalition with clearly more radical parties (Motorists, Freedom and Direct Democracy- SPD) shifting decisively the Czech political scene to the right.
As a part of the “Protecting European Values” project co-funded by the European Commission the group of KEW experts and fellows: Maria Wincławska, Vit Dostal and Dmitri Teperik, assisted by Gabriela Rzepka visited Prague from 8th to 10th October to talk with academics, analysts and journalists about the state perspectives of the future Czech government in regional and European contexts.
Our first interviewers were Mats Braun and Jan Kovář from the Institute of International Relations. Both analysts agreed that the coalition between ANO and the radicals will most likely sharpen the Eurosceptic narrative, especially in the fields of climate and migration policies. However, the actual withdrawal with the European Union is out of the question. Experts underline the importance of economic ties that Czech Republic as a very open, industrial country has to the Western and European market.
Martin Ehl, the journalist from the “Hospodarske Noviny” newspaper, noticed the lack of the counterbalance to Euroscepticism in the Czech political scene. He sees the victory of Andrej Babiš as a result of the hopes that Czech entrepreneurs bear for the next prime minister to better their economic situation. According to Mr Ehl, Babiš represents the “middle ground”: thanks to his flexibility of political views, he managed to secure votes from all social classes and age groups.
Miloš Brunclik, a lecturer of the Faculty of Social Sciences at Charles University, emphasised the role of the president in the process of nominating the government officials, prime minister included. Mr Brunclik argued that it is widely believed that Andrej Babiš has a clear conflict of interest regarding his possible position as a prime minister and the CEO of Agrofert holding. Our interviewer also underlined the role of the difficult economic situation in the Czech Republic as the factor affecting the election results the most. According to him ANO as the party of entrepreneurs led by one of them that gives in eyes of many Czechs, both the leader and his party credits for taking care of the Czech middle class.
Our next guest, Jan Charvat, assistant professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences at Charles University, stated that the 2025 Czech parliamentary elections were focused on limiting migration and stopping the Green Deal agreement. Eurosceptic rhetoric gave profits to almost all political parties that used it, but The Motorists benefited from them the most. The party managed to draw the attention of the people usually indifferent to the state or European policy and secured the votes of the people who have never voted before. Charvat argued that The Motorists are a better suited coalition partner from the perspective of ANO than any other party, as the movement is rather small and there is a possibility for ANO to overpower and “swallow” their coalition partner in the next few years.
According to Viktor Danek from EUROPEUM think-tank Andrej Babiš will try to introduce a transactional line in the politics, meaning taking benefits from openly criticising the EU without taking serious actions against Czech membership in the organisation or blocking EU legislation. Our guest sees the upcoming rule of ANO as the time of limiting the public funding for the NGOs. He also expressed his concerns that the future government will gain control of the public media sector, which would limit media freedom and credibility of them.
All our interviewers predict the decline of the government support for Ukraine, at least in the security sphere. The help for Ukraine topic is also closely bound the migration issue, as many Czechs believe that the stay of Ukrainian migrants and refugees in the Czech Republic contributed to the impoverishment of the society. Our guests also agreed on the possible trajectory of the regional cooperation. Babiš’s plan is to restore the functioning of the V4 cooperation, however, the existing divisions, especially between Warsaw and Budapest (governments) will not allow the cooperation to function properly. On the other hand, the re-tightening of the Czech-Slovak relations is expected as much as the close cooperation with Viktor Orban. On the European level Czechia will be more focused on cooperation within the European Council rather than the European Parliament of the European Commission as the first is considered ineffective and the later – oppressive. The presence of ANO in the Patriots for Europe group in the EP allows its politicians to appear critical and Eurosceptic while being in power in Prague will assure that the party remain within the system contesting it from within.
Co-financed by the National Freedom Institute – Centre for Civil Society Development in the framework of the Civil Society Organisations Development Programme for 2018-2030 CSODev
