PRAGUE (Reuters) -Czech election winner, billionaire Andrej Babis, must tell the public how he will eliminate conflicts of interest stemming from his business activities before he is appointed prime minister, President Petr Pavel said on Wednesday.
Babis’ populist ANO party won the October 3-4 election and is forming a government with two fringe right-wing partners.
Babis, 71, has said he would comply with a law regulating business interests of government members but has not said how.
The issue is becoming a hurdle in Babis’ return to power after four years in opposition.
Appointing Babis without a clear declaration on the issue could risk violating the constitution and could eventually lead to a loss of EU subsidies, the presidential office said in a statement.
“The president continues to demand that Andrej Babis, by the time of appointment as prime minister, publicly announces how he intends to resolve his conflict of interest,” the statement said.
After meeting Pavel on Wednesday, Babis said he would study materials on the matter given to him by the president but did not reveal how he would proceed.
Babis is the owner of hundreds of companies, most of them in the Agrofert group, in farming, food processing, chemicals, health and other sectors in the Czech Republic and other central European countries.
Many of his businesses receive local and EU subsidies given to farmers according to the size of their land or the number of animals they keep. They have also received subsidies for modernisation, and money from public contracts.
The corruption watchdog Transparency International has said that to make a clean break with his firms, Babis should either sell them, stop taking any public contracts, or stay out of government.
During his first term as prime minister from 2017 to 2021, Babis faced legal battles and a European probe over potential conflicts of interest. Then, he temporarily moved his assets to trust funds but a court and the European Commission found that to be insufficient.
(Reporting by Jan Lopatka; Editing by Sharon Singleton and Ros Russell)
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