MEPs have called on the European Commission to suspend funding to Agrofert, owned by the Czech prime minister, after repeated allegations of an Agrofert conflict of interest.
Agrofert, a conglomerate holding company, is owned by Prime Minister Andrej Babiš; the resolution sets out Parliament’s insistence that the commission publish all documents related to a possible Agrofert conflict of interest over companies owned by Agrofert received funding from the European Structural and Investment Funds in amounts ranging from €42 million to €82 million between 2013 and 2017.
During the first half of 2018 Babiš, who was elected on an anti-corruption platform, received an income of €3.5 million from his Agrofert Group trust funds; while concurrently acting as chairman of the Council for the European Structural and Investment Funds. MEPs are therefore now demanding that the European Commission fully investigate the potential Agrofert conflict of interest during Babiš’s time on the council.
The European Parliament’s resolution accused the commission of long term passivity over what appears to be evident Agrofert conflict of interest on Babiš’s part dating back to 2014. The EU’s newly adopted financial regulation, which governs the management of the EU budget, strictly prohibits conflicts of interest; and MEPs urged the commission to adopt a zero tolerance approach to such cases.
Babiš and Agrofert have previously been accused of financial misconduct: in the 2015 Čapí Hnízdo (Storks Nest) scandal, concurrent to the alleged Agrofert conflict of interest, the prime minister was alleged to have intentionally hidden his ownership of the Čapí Hnízdo farm in order to claim €2 million in EU small business subsidies – the farm, which had been owned by Agrofert, was transferred to a small anonymous company which appeared to be eligible for the subsidies; but it was later revealed that the company’s shareholders were members of Babiš’s family. During the Czech government’s investigation of the Čapí Hnízdo case Andrej Babiš Junior, one of the shareholders, said his father had sent associates to force him to leave the country in order to prevent him from testifying. Babiš Senior claimed his son was mentally unwell.
