SZ Podcast 5:59 | Babišův evropský comeback
Andrej Babiš is preparing to return to the helm of the Czech government — and with him comes a prominent and unpredictable player in European politics. His ambitions to reshape the EU, promises to withdraw from the migration pact or the emissions trading system, and his emphasis on personal ties between heads of state once again raise the question of whether he will align himself with leaders like Robert Fico and Viktor Orbán, or whether he will ultimately, and perhaps surprisingly, follow the more moderate course of his predecessor, Petr Fiala. For the Seznam Zprávy news podcast 5:59, Viktor Daněk, Deputy Executive Director and Head of the Prague Office at the EUROPEUM Institute, spoke on the topic.
8. December 2025
There was a certain sense of relief, because over time Andrej Babiš had been leaning more and more toward an alliance with Viktor Orbán, and he increasingly used the tactic of blocking the conclusions of the European Council in order to push through some sentence — sometimes even a nonsensical one — which he could then present as his own success.
But this is a somewhat different Andrej Babiš, who is no longer a member of the influential Renew Europe group. He is not part of the European mainstream; instead, he will arrive as a critic, as a member of a political group whose very foundation — its raison d’être, its purpose — is to be critical, to attack EU unity, to try to fracture it, and to bring a new, more nationalist perspective on how the EU should function.
You can listen to the full episode of the podcast here.
Related articles
