Final Word from Wednesday, July 2, 2025

Lawyers and analysts are debating whether Pres. Petr Pavel has the option due to the Stork's Nest ruling of not asking Andrej Babiš to form the next government, even if ANO has the election numbers, but less attention is being paid to whether Babiš actually wants the job. He told Deník in Dec. (at 9m) that he of course wants to be PM and will resolve his asset issue according to Czech law. Since then he hasn't given any indication of exactly how he plans to do this to avoid violating the conflict-of-interest law. He could perhaps sell Agrofert or the parts that receive Czech and EU subsidies, turn over the business to his children, agree with future coalition partners on amending the conflict-of-interest law or come up with a new structure for having his cake and eating it too. Or, Babiš could just keep Agrofert and turn over the PM job to Karel Havlíček. This is exactly what he's telling people in private conversations he'll do. But it's business as usual in this respect. Only Babiš really knows what he has up his sleeve. [ Czech Republic European Union premier prime minister trust fund ]