Czech parliament votes against court request to put PM Babiš on trial for EU subsidy fraud

2026-03-07 11:35:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

Czech parliament votes against court request to put PM Babiš on trial for

PRAGUE, March 5 (Reuters) - The lower house of the Czech parliament voted on Thursday to reject a court's request that billionaire and Prime Minister Andrej Babiš face trial in a long-running investigation into alleged fraud in obtaining a European Union subsidy.

Babiš, the leader of the populist ANO party, returned to power after winning elections in October last year, despite allegations in the case related to a 2 million euro subsidy given in 2008, before he entered politics, for the construction of a hotel and conference center near Prague called the "Stork Nest".

ANO MPs and their ruling coalition partners – the far-right, pro-Russian SPD party and the anti-Green Deal Motorists group – voted on Thursday not to lift Babiš’s parliamentary immunity, according to voting records. The vote means Babiš is protected from prosecution in the case until the end of parliament’s four-year term in 2029.

Babiš has denied any wrongdoing in the case, where prosecutors allege he concealed ownership of a company to benefit from the subsidy, which was intended for small businesses and not for large groups like the one Babiš owned.

He has argued, without presenting evidence, that the case was politically motivated to harm his political activity.

“The traditional party system understood that I represented a fundamental danger to them because I refused to steal and they could not bribe me,” he told MPs on Thursday.

An appeals court last year overturned a lower court's decision that had acquitted Babiš and sent the case back to the first-instance court.

The parliament's vote prevents the first-instance court from proceeding with a retrial.

Babiš has built a multi-billion-dollar business empire in agriculture, chemicals, food processing and other companies, including real estate and fertility clinics across Europe.

Parliament also on Thursday rejected a request to lift the immunity of Babiš's ruling coalition ally and SPD leader Tomio Okamura, who has been accused of hate speech.

Okamura called the charges an attempt to criminalize the political opposition./ CNA