Babiš’s ANO party cannot count on EU Parliament VP Charanzová in EU elections

Czech influential MEP Dita Charanzová (Renew), currently a vice-president of the European Parliament, will not be running for the European Parliament next year on behalf of ANO, the party of former prime minister Andrej Babiš.

Charanzová was elected to the European parliament for the first time in 2014 as a non-party member placed on the ANO candidacy list. In the 2019 elections, she was a leading candidate of the party established by Babiš, an agrochemical oligarch who was the country’s prime minister from 2017–2021.

But Charanzová told Hospodářské noviny in an interview on Tuesday that, as a liberal politician, she disagrees with the current conservative and nationalist direction of the ANO party, noting her disagreement with how Babiš conducted his presidential campaign.

“I have decided that I will no longer run for the ANO movement,” she told Hospodářské noviny. However, she has not yet decided whether to seek re-election by standing as a candidate for another political party.

In January 2023, Babiš ran an unsuccessful presidential campaign in which he was critical of the EU.

“I have been promoting liberal policies in the European Parliament for nine years, until recently, I was vice-president of the European Liberals (ALDE party). And I see that the ANO movement is now moving in a conservative, nationalist direction. And I will not advocate this policy,” the European Parliament’s vice-president stressed.

Her decision to cease cooperation with Babiš’s ANO further proves that the Czech ANO party, part of the Renew Europe group, is moving away from its former liberal values.

ANO’s recent behaviour has indeed raised concerns among European liberals, and the matter was discussed at the recent congress of the pan-European liberal party ALDE.

It can be expected that ANO’s leading candidate for the European Parliament elections will be led by someone close to Babiš’s current national-conservative politics, such as former Regional Development Minister for ANO, Klára Dostálová.

(Aneta Zachová | EURACTIV.cz)