“The 71-year-old Babiš said that he would comply with the law regulating the business interests of members of the government, but he did not say how,” the Singapore newspaper The Straits Times recalled the fact that Babiš claims that he will solve the matter, but he never talked about how he would do it.
“This question becomes an obstacle to Babiš’s return to power after four years in the opposition,” the newspaper added.
He recalled the words of the presidential office, which stated that if Babiš did not clearly state how he would resolve his conflict of interest, by appointing him prime minister, the president could violate the Constitution and jeopardize EU subsidies for the Czech Republic.
“The president continues to demand that Andrej Babiš publicly announce how he intends to resolve his conflict of interests before he is appointed prime minister,” presidential office spokesman Filip Platoš said on Wednesday.
The Romanian server Hot News reminded about Babiš’s conflict of interests that Babiš owns hundreds of companies, most of which are part of Agrofert. “Many of these companies draw local and European subsidies for farmers, which are calculated according to the area of land or the number of animals kept; some of them also received subsidies for modernization and money from public contracts,” he wrote.
Babiš’s conflict of interest was also noticed by the Polish station TVP World, the Ukrainian daily Evropejskaja pravda and the Ukrainian server Obozrevatel, which mentioned that the formation of Babiš’s new cabinet may take several more weeks.
| How can Babiš resolve his conflict of interests | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Babiš can resolve the conflict of interests by selling the Agrofert holding, which he would probably not be able to do in the required time. Another possibility is to put the company in a blind trust fund, where it would have no influence on their functioning, or to transfer the holding to your children. A variant is, in theory, that Agrofert would give up subsidies and participation in public tenders. |
