By Albin Sybera
The continuing membership of Czech populist ANO party in the European Parliament liberal fraction Renew Europe (formerly Alde) is looking more and more doubtful because of its increasingly rightwing and populist direction.
ANO is leading a fierce campaign in Czechia in which it has attacked the EU, especially over the Green Deal and the recent migration pact. In tone, the party of the billionaire ex-premier Andrej Babis has oscillated between the Eurosceptic neoliberal ODS of sitting Prime Minister Petr Fiala and the far-right SPD, whose leaders have advocated Czexit.
“As a movement ANO we will fight for the sovereignty of our country and for better lives of all citizens of the Czech Republic. If you want to change what is happening in Europe now and chase away all those pro-immigration welcomers and green lunatics, please come to the elections and vote number 14, vote movement ANO. Thank you,” Babis summed up the ANO message at the CNN Prima News television debate on his Facebook ahead of the vote.
A successive array of his previous video messages includes “CZK40,000 a month for every illegal migrant. That is the result of the work of [Minister of Interior Vit] Rakusan and Fiala. And how much will they give to our people?,” ending “vote before it’s too late”.
However, opposition to migration and the Green Deal is voiced by most of the parties and lists across the Czech political spectrum, with the exception of the pro-EU Pirate Party and centrist Mayors and Independents. This has dominated the Czech election campaign, making ANO's criticism of the EU appear virtually a mainstream stance.
Critics of the Green Deal “have it easier [in Czechia], because they can catch on to real or imaginary issues, which the agreements involve,” political scientist Petr Just told Czech Radio’s political programme earlier this week.
“In this theme, you can pick on issues which you take out of context the way it fits into your narrative and into how you want to present the Green Deal itself or the functioning of the European Parliament and the EU in general,” Just said.
In Brussels ANO's wayward stance was in the past camouflaged by the liberal position taken by some of its MEPs, notably the EP vice-president Dita Charanoza, but she announced last year that she would no longer stand for ANO because of its increasingly conservative and nationalist positions.
Babis himself has hinted that his party’s domestic stance on EU affairs is incompatible with Renew’s pro-EU liberalism, even though Babis somewhat muted his open ties to Hungary's radical rightwing autocrat Viktor Orban ahead of the EP campaign.
“We don’t know in which political group we will end up,” Babis was quoted as saying by the country’s daily DennikN.
A potential shift of ANO towards the European Conservatives and Reformists Group (ECR) could open up a space for the Mayor and Independents (EPP) and possibly the Pirate Party (Greens) to move to Renew. Both parties currently would not want to share a group with ANO MEPs, their main political rivals in Czechia.
At the same time, ECR is home to Fiala’s ODS, which has remodelled its domestic political outlook on opposition to Babis, making a comeback to the government in 2021 after nearly a decade in opposition caused by its numerous corruption scandals. The ODS could potentially block ANO's move to the ECR grouping.
ODS MEP and fierce Green Deal critic Alexandr Vondra leads the SPOLU list, which besides Eurosceptic candidates includes strange bedfellows such as pro-EU liberal MEP Ludek Niedermayer of the liberal conservative TOP 09, which sits in the European People’s Party. The candidates have made it clear that after the campaign in Czechia, they would go their own ways in the European Parliament.
The last STEM/MARK poll projects ANO to win with 23.1%, just ahead of the SPLU list with 21.5%. Mayors and Independents improved to 10.3%, followed by the list of far-right SPD and nationalist libertarian Tricolour (9.5%) and the Pirate Party (9.4%). Conservative and nationalist left list Stacilo! [It was enough!] led by communist MEP Katerina Konecna also appears to be cruising towards the EP presence with 8.1%.
The list of far-right-leaning Prisaha [Pledge] and anti-green Motorists is just below the 5% threshold at 4.7%. Its leader, Filip Turek, a former seller of dubious homemade goods against COVID-19, appears to have lost some of his popular support among Green Deal opponents after pictures of his home collection of various Nazi and fascist insignia and items began to circulate online and in the country’s media.
