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Andrej Babiš pulled off a remarkable political comeback on Saturday with a decisive victory in Czech parliamentary elections. The billionaire entrepreneur who served as prime minister from 2017 to 2021 joins the swelling ranks of rightwing Eurosceptics taking or threatening to take power in Europe.
His return to office will embolden central European populists led by Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, potentially further constraining the EU from acting more decisively to help Ukraine or tackle climate change. The Hungarian leader said Babiš’s victory was “good news for Europe”.
The former Czech premier has ridden the same Trumpian wave that propelled ultra-conservative Karol Nawrocki to the Polish presidency in June and carried George Simion, a far-right former football hooligan, to a close second in Romania’s presidential election in May.
Babiš has long cultivated comparisons with Donald Trump, a fellow billionaire politician. His election campaign also sold familiar-looking red caps, in this case emblazoned with the words “Strong Czechia”.
But Babiš’s victory was part of a decade-long pattern in central Europe where power has swung back and forth like a “pendulum” between centrist, liberal forces and illiberal populist ones, said Daniel Hegedüs, an expert on the region at the German Marshall Fund think-tank.
The exception is Orbán’s long rule in Hungary. But even that could end with election defeat next year, if the opinion polls prove to be correct and the contest is free and fair.
Babiš, whose ANO party once belonged to the European liberal family, has moved sharply to the right in recent years. He co-founded the pan-EU far-right Patriots for Europe group alongside not just Orbán but also Herbert Kickl, a far-right ideologue who heads Austria’s Freedom party.
Babiš campaigned inveighing against immigration, EU climate policies and over-reach by Brussels. He has promised to end Czech bilateral military aid to Ukraine. To govern he will need the support of the pro-Russia Freedom and Direct Democracy party (SPD) and a hard-right populist party representing motorists.
Babiš, together with Orbán and Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico, will try to revitalise the Visegrád regional alliance, albeit without the help of Poland’s pro-EU government, as a way to promote a Eurosceptic political agenda for Europe.
But there are policy differences between them, including on Russia and on Ukraine’s EU membership path. And sloganeering is one thing, blocking critical EU decisions is another. EU partners have learnt to “differentiate when a dog is barking and when a dog is biting”, Hegedüs said.
The European Council, which brings together the EU’s 27 heads of government, will soon have two far-right Patriots for Europe members in Orbán and Babiš and potentially a third if Fico joins the group. That would create a “critical mass of disruptive potential” in the EU’s highest decision-making body, said Hegedüs.
Babiš is no ideologue. He is probably more like Silvio Berlusconi than a second-term Donald Trump — although like both of them he faces claims of conflicts of interests between his business empire and government responsibilities.
Analysts expect Babiš to be more pragmatic and less obstructive than his two regional allies. It would be surprising if he ends the Czech Republic’s role in supplying ammunition to Ukraine even when that would be bad for Czech business.
Domestically, Babiš faces stronger domestic checks and balances than his counterparts, in particular from Petr Pavel, the former Nato commander who beat him to the presidency in 2023. And Ukraine and other allies can also draw comfort from the worse than expected election performance of pro-Russian parties, with the hard-left alliance failing to make it into parliament at all.
Prague has always tended be a somewhat Eurosceptic voice. And the EU is already watering down its green ambitions and toughening its stance on migration. So Babiš’s return to power may not move the dial much on EU policymaking.
It will allow three central European leaders to project a common front and claim they are the political future of Europe. But with the pendulum swinging the other way in Hungary, the Babiš-Orbán-Fico show may not last long.
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