Massimo Privitera, University of Antwerp
Photo Credits: Financial Times
Czech voters have once again placed their trust in Andrej Babiš, a billionaire populist whose career has been shadowed by protracted legal battles over allegations of defrauding European Union funds. His ANO party brought him back to power, despite a fraud trial looming over him and persistent concerns over a fundamental conflict of interest, since he owns Agrofert, the largest recipient of EU agricultural subsidies in the Czech Republic.
The core legal controversy surrounding Babiš, known as the “Stork’s Nest” case, dates back to 2008. The allegations are straightforward: Babiš was accused of hiding ownership of a farm and conference center to illegally tap €2 million in EU subsidies earmarked exclusively for small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs). Prosecutors alleged that the property was transferred from his massive Agrofert conglomerate to his wife and children to meet the funding criteria, only for Agrofert to later reabsorb it.
The journey of this case through the legal system highlights the challenges of prosecuting high-profile individuals. In January 2023, a Prague court acquitted Babiš, with the judge citing a lack of evidence. However, this was not the final word. Later in 2023, an appeals court overturned the acquittal, ordering a retrial and ensuring the legal battle would continue. This back-and-forth has allowed Babiš to frame the proceedings as a political witch hunt, a narrative that appears to have resonated with a significant portion of the electorate.
Babiš entered politics in 2011 and founded the ANO party on a vehement anti-corruption platform, capitalizing on public disillusionment following civil society campaigns. He presented himself as a successful businessman who could clean up the state, a message that propelled his party to second place in the 2013 election and saw him become finance minister and, later, prime minister from 2017 to 2021.
However, his entire political career has been dogged by the fundamental conflict of interest stemming from his ownership of Agrofert, which he placed into trust funds in 2017, a move several rulings have since considered insufficient to resolve the conflict. Further complicating his profile as an integrity candidate was his appearance in the Pandora Papers investigation, which revealed his hidden ownership of a €22.5 million French castle, Chateau Bigaud, and triggered a separate investigation by French prosecutors in 2022 over the unclear beneficial ownership of the property.
The contrast between the protracted Babiš case and other recent convictions in the Czech Republic is telling. Just in September 2025, a Czech company and its executive director were swiftly convicted by the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) for fraudulently obtaining €220,000 in EU funds for a dust reduction project. The defendants, who admitted guilt, submitted false information in their grant application and used the purchased equipment for different purposes than specified. They were sentenced to hefty fines and banned from receiving subsidies. This case demonstrates that the system can work efficiently, yet a much larger alleged fraud involving a political heavyweight remains unresolved after nearly a decade.
The Babiš saga underscores critical weaknesses in the European Union’s ability to combat high-level corruption that crosses its borders, as highlighted by BridgeGap’s principal investigator Alina Mungiu-Pippidi:
- The Limits of EU Power: The EU lacks a powerful, centralized criminal court for corruption. While the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) conducts administrative investigations, and the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) can prosecute, their work ultimately depends on national judicial systems. OLAF can recommend recovery of funds and refer criminal cases to EPPO, but final judgment rests with national courts.
- A Stalled Anti-Corruption Framework: A key solution to this fragmented enforcement is a proposed EU Anti-Corruption Directive, aimed at harmonizing definitions of corruption offenses and sanctions across member states. However, this directive is currently in a state of political deadlock. Trilogue talks between the Commission, Parliament, and Council have repeatedly stalled due to resistance from several member states, including Hungary, Germany, and Italy.
Figure 1: Share of public contracts which received only one bid in 2022 by country (0-100%)
The fact that a politician with Babiš’s legal and ethical baggage can be re-elected points to a deeper malaise. It suggests that for a critical mass of voters, his anti-establishment rhetoric outweighs allegations of corruption. This is compounded by a concerning deterioration of public integrity in the Czech Republic. Research from the BridgeGap project indicates a high rate of non-competitive public tenders (Figure 1), as well as a stark deterioration of performance on this indicator over time (Figure 2), a strong indicator of collusion that distorts the market and erodes public trust.
Figure 2: Change in share of public contracts which received only one bid from 2012 to 2022 by country (in percentage points)
Source: Mungiu-Pippidi and Parvanova (2025)