Billionaire Czech Premier Faces More Heat Over Conflict of Interest Probes

(Bloomberg) --

The Czech Republic’s billionaire prime minister is coming under increasing pressure over allegations of conflict of interest, which last year triggered the country’s biggest anti-government protests in three decades.

A European Commission audit said that Andrej Babis maintained control over his chemical, farming and media business empire, which continued to receive funds from the European Union’s budget after he took power in 2017, news website Neovlivni.cz reported Monday, citing a person with knowledge of the findings.

The audit focused on investment subsidies for agriculture companies and came to the same conclusion as last year’s probe related to EU’s development funds. Babis said he had no inflation about the farming audit.

The prime minister rejected all allegations and said he obeyed the rules by placing his company Agrofert in trusts before taking office. Babis also expects the country to oppose any “senseless interpretation of the Czech law by Brussels,” according to a statement to the public newswire CTK.

Agrofert, which employs about 34,000 people in 18 countries and had sales of 158 billion koruna ($7 billion) in 2018, also said it had no information about the farming audit. The Czech Radio reported the company received 66 million koruna in such subsidies in 2018, half of which came from EU budget.

The conflict-of-interest allegations were a chief trigger of a series of the biggest anti-government demonstrations since the fall of communism. The organizers of the rallies said they’ll announce further protest actions against Babis on Tuesday.

Despite the protests and the legal challenges, Babis remains the most popular politician in the country of 10.7 million. His ANO party has a wide lead in opinion polls about two years before elections following decisions to raise pensions and salaries of state employees.

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