Last Monday. Andrej Babiš At a press conference, he announced that his ANO movement would join the Patriotic faction for Europe – a fresh utmost right-wing group in the European Parliament. It would seem that this information does not deserve peculiar attention. Here, another east European populist adds his 7 Euro MPs to the Le Pen, Orbán and Salvin project. This is the function of right-wing populists from the East.
And yet Andrej Babiš is not an utmost right-winger. Or more specifically, he hasn't been. His organization has been a associate of the Liberal ALDE/Renew faction for the last 10 years and has nominated for the European Commission Věra Jourova, which has become the face of the EC in conflict with Poland and Hungary around the regulation of law and respect for EU values. How did this turn into ANO policy and what does it look like against the background of wider trends in the Visegrad Group?
Populism par excellence and Prime Minister without properties
It should be noted at the outset that the erstwhile Czech Prime Minister most likely has no political views. Over the course of respective years, the presence in Czech politics has not become known as the creator of any major imagination or even the political environment. Nor is there any indication that any thought or even circumstantial legal solution is personally crucial to him. His approach can be called populism par excellence – always present the conviction closest to the views of the majority of society, which will let to gain and keep power.
This Babiš differs importantly from Orbán and Kaczyński – besides from efficient populists who, however, do not hide that their goal is to rebuild the state and society according to the principles of their ideology. ANO's leader is much closer in this respect to Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fica, a erstwhile Social Democrat, for whom the maintenance of power seems to be an end in itself, and any thought of achieving this goal can only hinder.
And yet politically, all 4 gentlemen were never closer. The slow drift of the Czech ANO and Slovak Smeru towards the Eurosceptic and xenophobic right has now made it hard to find greater differences between them and PiS and Fidesz.
The ANO movement, founded by Babiš before the 2013 parliamentary elections, initially proclaimed the slogan of liberal populism – the state was to be "managed as a company", and the warrant of the credibility of this imagination was the individual success of the leader of the movement as owner of the agrifert food and chemistry company. The programme included combating corruption and "new quality in politics", support for entrepreneurs and efficient state services.
Pavel Telička, erstwhile Czech Permanent typical to the EU and Deputy Minister of abroad Affairs, became the face of the ANO programme in the area of abroad policy. In this context, the accession to the ALDE after the 2014 European elections seemed to be rather a logical consequence of the party's perfect profile, resembling in many respects early PO and the beginning of pro-European.
At the same time, ANO remained a organization of 1 man. Although in the first period Babiš managed to encourage many centre technocrats to cooperate, the president of the movement never had the slightest desire to deal with their views. As a result, most members of this wing of ANO are no longer in the organization (Telička left in 2017, Jourová officially in late June 2024).
Meanwhile, Babiš himself as Deputy Prime Minister (2014–2017) and Prime Minister (2017–2021) showed that abroad and EU policies are purely instrumental. beautiful fast. he became known as an opponent of immigration and a supporter of building blocking minorities within the Visegrad Group.
A fresh Breakdown into Population Times
Babiš' relation with the EU has besides surely cooled the Commission and OLAF's EU audit office to address the issue of subsidies received by Agrofert and alleged breach of the provisions prohibiting EU subsidies on companies belonging to public functions. Among another things, it was the celebrated case of the alleged Storks – a conference centre, which was to be created for grants extorted by Agrofert's daughter (the court twice acquitted Babiš in the case, proceedings before the appeal court are ongoing).
However, much more crucial to the right-wing transformation of ANOs were changes in interior policy. Babiš's acquisition of the coalition electorate of social democracy in 2013–2017 and his alliance with president Miloš Zeman meant a fresh political scene divided – for ‘populationists’ and ‘anti-populationists’. This changed both the structure of the ANO electorate and the possible themes taken by the party.
Babiš, now representing the interests of the little well-placed voters and voters from the smaller towns, began to scope for themes from the repertoire of right-wing populism, threatening migration and failure of sovereignty. His "fight with the establishment" besides ceased to be presented as a dispute of a fresh force with the corrupt elite of the old power, but increasingly entered into Zemanowski's railways of dispute with the "Praska cafe" – liberal-left large-town intellectual elites, separated from the problems of average people.
Models from the US, Hungary or Poland told Babiš that specified a setting of the dispute would give a chance for tangible political benefits. Besides, it was clear that in the fresh situation there was nothing to look for among the mediate class wanting technocratic liberalism.
Simultaneously The spectacular fall of the left and its inability to propose an alternate to the "anti-populist" camp's proposals pushed all the "populist" politicians (Babyš, Zeman, communists) towards the far right, which began to grow in polls and became the biggest threat and possible coalition partner for the ANO. In this year's election campaign, Babiša ran with the slogans of defending sovereignty against Brussels bureaucracy, as well as opposition to immigration and the introduction of the euro.
In the European elections, the ANO somewhat overtook the parties of the current ruling coalition, but did not come close to the polling results on parliamentary elections and giving the parties hope for a stand-alone majority. As in many another European countries, the EP elections are enjoying Czech Republic little interest and aid to break out utmost parties. A good consequence of the utmost right, led by the car influencer Philip Turk and the image-freshed coalition under the leadership of the communists (now indistinguishable from the utmost right) says that before next year's parliamentary elections the ANO will keep its course to the right to take over their voters.
This is besides indicated by the abrupt transition of the recently elected Euro MPs to the Patriots for Europe, although in the weakened consequence of the Macronists of the Renew faction, they could most likely number on strengthening their position. Significantly, no of them commented publically on this volt, and the press began to speculate about possible departures from the party. At the same time, Babiš's main opponent, the centre-right ODS of Prime Minister Fiala, is simply a associate of the PiS faction of European Conservatives and Reformists, making Czech representation in the EP 1 of the most Eurosceptic and at the same time weakening its influence on the cast of EU positions.
Proukrain Eurosceptics on the LGBT side
Interestingly, the ANO has not so far taken over 2 crucial elements from the arsenal of right-wing populism – rusophilia and anti-LGBT+ rhetoric. Although Babiš has been criticised for besides much Czech support for Ukraine or for "bringing the Czech Republic into the war", he remains proukrian for the time being, especially against the background of his fresh colleagues from the faction.
Similarly, LGBT+ rights. In this year's unsuccessful effort to introduce ANO single-sex marriages was divided, but there is simply a strong group of task supporters in the organization itself, and in the past Babiš himself publically supported matrimony equality. The simplest explanation for specified a position is, of course, in both cases the opinion of the Czech public – alternatively pro-Ukrainian and not peculiarly curious in "worldview themes".
However, further developments depend mainly on the polls before next year's parliamentary elections. So far, everything indicates that Babiš will be able to return to the Prime Minister's seat. It is besides not excluded that the ANO, as the first organization in history, will gain a stand-alone majority in the Chamber of Members.
However, if this did not happen, Babiš would be forced to search a coalition partner. Both scenarios – the election fight for the electorate of the far right and building a coalition with it – propose a continuation of the right turn. Time will show whether and how rapidly ANO will be home to fresh colleagues in the Euro-Parliament. 1 thing is certain – nothing good for the Czech Republic or cooperation in the region will result.
