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Politics or pipelines: what wins in Slovakia?
29 October 2025
Andrej Babiš has reclaimed the centre of Czech politics. His ANO 2011 topped the vote but must still assemble a majority, forcing messy deals that will shape Prague’s stance on Ukraine, the Green Deal and media freedom. But Brussels should expect tactical obstruction, not a complete rupture.
The Czech election in early October brought about a change everyone expected. The populist ANO 2011 movement, led by former Prime Minister Andrej Babiš, secured 34.5 per cent of the vote. It became the undisputed winner of the ballot as well as a hegemon of the political scene.
The governing centre-right coalition of three parties led by Prime Minister Petr Fiala gained 23.3 per cent. The largest single party after ANO is the Mayors, or STAN, with only 11.2 per cent. Yet, despite the historic success, ANO cannot govern alone because it will not have a majority in the Chamber of Deputies. To secure this, the party has already started government talks with two junior partners, the radical Motorists for Themselves and the far-right SPD movement.
The vote and the maths
The Motorists secured 6.7 per cent and the SPD 7.7 per cent. If one puts down only the figures — 34.5 and 6.7/7.7 respectively — they speak for themselves. A lot will be about Andrej Babiš, and about Andrej Babiš only, in the years to come. It has been so in the case of the ANO party — founded, financed and led by Babiš since day one — and now it will extend to the whole of Czechia. This sets the stage for assessing what might come next from the Czech Republic, despite the fact that the future government is not formed yet.
In fact, at the time of writing, things have gotten rather rough.
Coalition turbulence
Potential nominees for ministerial posts from the Motorists have become embroiled in extraordinary scandals and investigative journalists have exposed a few SPD candidates for ministers as highly unsuitable, too. Andrej Babiš, as chief negotiator of the new government, has taken a step aside and claimed that it is up to the two parties to bring forward nominees for ministers, not up to him. Then he went on holiday.
It is widely understood that the leader of ANO has actually given time to his prospective coalition partners to put forward less toxic candidates. Any government minister is nominated by the prime minister and appointed by the president according to the Czech constitution. The current head of state, Petr Pavel, has already stated he has ‘fundamental objections’ to some candidates.
What comes next
The constitutive session of the new Parliament has been set for 3 November. Only after that day can the current government resign, the next prime minister be appointed and the new coalition ask for a vote of confidence.
Until that day, anything and nothing can happen at the same time. Still, it is believed that some sort of government of ANO–Motorists–SPD will be formed. Why?
Together they have a majority of 108 in the Chamber of 200 Deputies. Babiš faces criminal charges of fraud concerning an EU subsidy for one of his companies. The Prague City Court has already asked the Chamber to lift the immunity of the ANO leader. In order to avoid prosecution, Babiš needs a majority of MPs to vote against.
Once his immunity is upheld, the composition of the government might change. He can even lead a minority cabinet, which is his favourite option. This brings us back to the initial point, that whatever happens and whoever finally co-governs in Czechia, a lot will depend on Babiš.
So what shall the European partners expect from him?
There was much speculation prior to the election whether Czechia would turn its back on the EU, NATO and Ukraine because of the radical anti-Ukraine and anti-EU rhetoric of ANO and Babiš himself. Also, the SPD party has long lobbied for a referendum on both organisations.
During election night and since then, Babiš has ruled out a plebiscite on both. He has EU optimists and pro-Western entrepreneurs among his supporters as well as eurosceptics and critics of NATO. Also, any major policy shift requires the consent of the Senate and the president and both have stated a clear ‘no’ to an EU or NATO exit.
Last but not least, the billionaire leader of ANO has businesses in sixteen European states. None in Russia, none in China. His holding, Agrofert, is the single biggest beneficiary of EU agricultural subsidies in Czechia. Why would he want to reduce his cash flow with an EU exit?
On Ukraine, it is a different story
Since Czechs are getting uneasy with sending military aid to Ukraine — claiming the country would become a target of Russian revenge — Babiš, a populist, has taken the stance of a ‘peacenik’.
‘I want peace in Ukraine’ is his most common answer to a question on his policy towards Ukraine. He has pointed to Vladimir Putin as the sole aggressor and called the invasion horrific. But he refuses to commit to more military aid to Kyiv should he lead the government again.
It is understood that the Czech ammunition initiative, which provided more than three million artillery shells to Ukraine, would change, if not stop. In a recent interview with Reuters, Babiš labelled the shells ‘rotten’ and ‘overpriced’.
On election night, he burst out that a private entity should not ‘profit billions’ from a war. Some observers explain this as a claim that Babiš may be okay with the continuation of the ammunition initiative in the end, if the profits of some competitors to Agrofert go down. After all, Andrej Babiš also said that the initiative was ‘a good idea in principle’.
The same goes for reconstruction aid to Ukraine. Czechia has Luhansk Oblast as the territory in its charge and has received hundreds of millions of euros from the EU to help rebuild hospitals or energy grids in the country. Babiš has criticised the handling of this project by the current government, but did not say what his intention is here.
The same night, Babiš got a question from a Ukrainian reporter about his support for the its membership in the EU. The leader of the ANO did not say no, but he did not say yes either. ‘But you are not ready for the EU,’ he answered. ‘First, we have to end the war. And of course, we can cooperate with Ukraine. But you are not ready for the EU.’
So it is difficult to draw any clear conclusion from the ANO leader’s remarks. The new Czech policy towards Ukraine will have to be seen at a later stage.
The yo-yo swing
During Andrej Babiš’s first mandate as prime minister, 2017–2021, the ANO party belonged to the liberal group in the EU, Renew. Last year, he formed Patriots for Europe together with Hungarian leader Viktor Orbán and French politician Marine Le Pen.
The rhetoric and electorate of ANO have shifted considerably over recent years and they fit well with the anti-establishment far-right Patriots. Andrej Babiš has become a vocal critic of the Green Deal, calling it ‘green insanity’, and he lashes out at the EU migration pact as an existential threat to Czechia.
The Axis of Visegrad?
European politicians will find a noisy maverick in Babiš 2.0. But will he join Viktor Orbán in vetoing common EU policy on Ukraine or sanctions on Russia?
If it suits his interest, he will do so. But he will ‘cherry pick his fights with the EU’, as the chief analyst of the Czech Association for International Affairs, Vít Dostál, claims. That is what he did during his first term as prime minister. Second, Babiš likes to be respected by the big bosses of the world, like Emmanuel Macron or Giorgia Meloni. And, as already mentioned, his fortune is located in Western Europe.
Analysts like Vít Dostál claim that Babiš may be more like Robert Fico of Slovakia, criticising the ‘dictate of Brussels’ a lot at home but not blocking anything while in Brussels.
What really comes after the new government takes office is anybody’s guess at the moment. But it is fair to say that those who should worry are public media organisations. All three potential coalition partners want to follow the Slovak or Hungarian approach in this regard and put public media under political control by nationalising their budgets.
If they do so, they will clash with the European Media Freedom Act, the new EU law that protects independent media. Europe may then find rather quickly what Babiš number two means for the EU.
