Andrej Babiš

Andrej Babiš (; born 2 September 1954) is a Czech politician and businessman of Slovak descent who served as the Prime Minister of the Czech Republic from 2017 to 2021. Babis previously served as the Minister of Finance and deputy Prime Minister from 2014 to 2017 in Bohuslav Sobotka's Cabinet. He has been the founding leader of the political party ANO 2011 since 2012. On 30 October 2022, Babiš announced his candidacy in the 2023 Czech presidential election.

During a lengthy business career, he became one of the richest people in the Czech Republic, with an estimated net worth of about $4.04 billion according to Bloomberg. He is the owner of the Agrofert holding company, one of the country's largest firms.

Babiš was appointed Prime Minister on 6 December 2017, after ANO 2011 emerged as the largest party at the 2017 Czech legislative election. He was the oldest and wealthiest person ever to become Prime Minister of the Czech Republic, as well as the first from a different party than the Civic Democratic Party or ČSSD. Babiš is also the first Prime Minister born outside the Czech Republic, the first to hold dual citizenship, and the first whose native language is not Czech.

Babiš's term as Prime Minister in office was marked by legal disputes with the European Commission due to accusations of conflict of interest and allegations of EU subsidy fraud, as well as an informal power alliance with President Miloš Zeman and the Communist Party. His government increased pensions, child tax credits and public sector salaries. Major political events of his term include the expulsion of over 80 Russian diplomats and resident spies following the disclosure of Russian involvement in the 2014 Vrbětice explosions, and the COVID-19 pandemic, which killed more than 35,000 people in the Czech Republic, triggering criticism of the government's response. Babiš was succeeded as Prime Minister by Petr Fiala on 17 December 2021, following the 2021 election.

Following allegations that an anonymous company he controlled unlawfully received a €2M subsidy from the European Regional Development Fund, Babiš was investigated by both the Czech police and the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) from 2015 to 2017. He was stripped of his parliamentary immunity and formally charged on 9 October 2017. His trial began in Prague in September 2022. Babiš has received sustained criticism from political opponents and the media over a number of issues, including alleged conflicts of interest, his past role in StB, and allegations of intimidation of opponents. Nonetheless, he remains one of the most popular politicians in the Czech Republic.

Early life and career

Andrej Babiš was born on 2 September 1954 in Bratislava to a Slovak father from Hlohovec and a Carpathian German mother from Yasinia, now Zakarpattia Oblast of Ukraine. His father, a diplomat and member of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ), represented Czechoslovakia during the negotiation of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in Geneva and as a consultant at the United Nations. On his mother's side, he is the nephew of Ervin and Viera Scheibner.

Babiš spent part of his childhood abroad, and was educated in Paris and Geneva. Later, he studied at a gymnasium and continued to the University of Economics in Bratislava, where he studied international trade. In 1978, after graduating, he joined the Slovak state-controlled international trading company Chemapol Bratislava, which later became Petrimex. In 1985, he was appointed as the organisation's representative in Morocco. He joined the KSČ in 1980. During the 1980s, he was an agent for StB, the Czechoslovak secret state security service. Babiš denies knowingly being an agent of StB, but his legal challenges against the Slovak National Memory Institute were unsuccessful. It is alleged that he was also in contact with the Soviet KGB.

Business career

Babiš returned from Morocco to Czechoslovakia in 1991, after the Velvet Revolution, and settled in the Czech Republic after the dissolution of Czechoslovakia.

In January 1993, Babiš became managing director of Agrofert, a newly established Petrimex subsidiary operating in the Czech Republic.Commercial register at justice.cz, identification number (IČ) 48117072, Agrofert, spol. s r.o. He had suggested establishing Agrofert while he was a director at Petrimex, during which time Agrofert was recapitalised by OFI, a company of unknown ownership based in Baar, Switzerland, which took control of Agrofert from Petrimex. Petrimex later fired Babiš and sued him, unsuccessfully, for allowing the firm's stake in Agrofert to be diluted. Soon thereafter, Babiš emerged as the 100% owner of Agrofert. The source of the initial financing for Babiš's takeover of Agrofert from Petrimex was still undisclosed as of the start of 2016, although Babiš has said that the money came from his Swiss former schoolmates.

Babiš gradually developed Agrofert into one of the largest companies in the country, starting as a wholesale and trading firm, but later acquiring various agricultural, food processing, and chemical companies. In 2011 Agrofert Holding consisted of more than 230 companies, mainly in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and (Germany). It is the fourth largest company in the Czech Republic by revenue, exceeding CZK 117 billion. The history of Agrofert, detailed in a book by the journalist Tomáš Pergler, is closely linked to its control of the Czech petrochemicals industry. One reviewer of the book said the account "captures much of what has led Czechs to the conviction that they live in a corrupted, clientist country – and (paradoxically) then to vote for the ANO movement." When Babiš entered politics he resigned as CEO, but remained sole owner until February 2017, when he was legally obliged to put his companies in a trust to remain as Minister of Finance.

While Babiš's business activities initially focused mainly on agriculture, he later acquired a large empire of media companies. In 2013, Agrofert purchased the company MAFRA, publisher of two of the biggest Czech newspapers, ''Lidové noviny