Andrej Babis

This case was investigated by the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF). The OLAF final report was delivered to the Czech officers of the Ministry of Finance at the end of the year 2017 (27.12.2017) . Journalist Sabina Slonkova (server Neovlivnitelní.cz (Non-swayed)) described details from the results of OLAF to the public on January 3, 2018 and she concluded that OLAF's final report confirmed the investigation of the Police of the Czech Republic and prosecutors, specifically,that fraud was planned from the beginning. The complete text of the OLAF final report was finally published by the server www.aktualne.cz on January 11, 2018 (in Czech translation) with the comment defending the right to get true information made by Vladimir Piskacek, one of the Directors of the Media house Economia AS, which publishes Hospodářské noviny./

Babiš was born on 2 September 1954 to a Slovak family in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia (present-day Slovakia). His Father, a diplomat and member of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, represented Czechoslovakia during negotiations with the GATT at Geneva and as a consultant at the United Nations. He is nephew of Ervin and Viera Scheibner.

Babiš spent a part of his childhood abroad, being educated in Paris and Geneva. Later, he studied at a gymnasium in Bratislava and continued at the University of Economics, where he studied international trade. Following his studies, he worked as an employee of the Slovak communist controlled international trade company, Petrimex, initially joining the organisation in 1978 when it was known by its previous name, Chemapol Bratislava, in 1985 he was appointed as the organisation's representative in Morocco. Whilst working for Petrimex he also became a Communist Party member in 1980. In addition to accusations that he was a "powerful agent" for the Czechoslovak secret state security Service, StB, during the Communist era, he also has been accused of being a KGB officer in those years.

He returned to Czechoslovakia from Morocco in 1991, after the Velvet Revolution, and resided in the Czech Republic after the dissolution of Czechoslovakia. He became managing Director of Agrofert in 1993, and gradually developed it into one of the largest companies in the country. Agrofert had been a subsidiary of Petrimex while Babiš was on the Board. During his time on the Board, Agrofert was recapitalised quietly by an obscure Swiss entity, OFI (located in the same small Swiss town, Baar, where Marc Rich was located,) 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 turned out to be the 100% owner of Agrofert. He originally focused his Business activities mainly on agriculture, but in recent years he has acquired a large empire of media companies. This has brought him criticism from parties who believe he is amassing far too much power, since the media outlets he controls publish very sympathetic coverage of him.

In January 1993, Babiš became managing Director of a newly established Petrimex subsidiary operating in the Czech Republic, Agrofert. He had suggested establishing Agrofert while he was a Director at Petrimex, and he gradually assumed full control over the new company. The (foreign) source of the initial financing for his 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 "schoolmates".

Babiš has been linked closely to President Miloš Zeman since at least 2001, when Zeman was Prime Minister, and his Business interests are alleged to have benefited from the association. In 2001, Zeman oversaw the sale of Unipetrol, a state-owned chemical company, to Babiš. Babiš pulled out of the sale, but later oversaw the sale of the firm to a Polish company. The sale was tainted by a massive bribery scandal, according to Polish reports, although Babis denies any bribes were paid. The Unipetrol deal is cited often as evidence of a strong partnership between Babiš and Zeman that persists.

Babiš responded to Applebaum by claiming in a letter to the Washington Post that he has no friends in Russia and is an American ally. A Washington, D.C. based Journalist challenged those claims by citing several examples of acts Babiš has taken that have furthered Russian policy goals. One Example was a Czech government loan guarantee to a Russian company with a record of defaults, owned by a close friend of President Putin. Another Example was the Czech Finance Ministry's elaborate procedure taken to continue racing the thoroughbred horses prized by Ramzan Kadyrov, President of Chechnya and close ally of Putin, even though he is under international sanctions. The final Example was that Babis had disclosed in 2007 that his firm, Agrofert, was negotiating to purchase gas – Agrofert's main feedstock – from the Czech subsidiary of Gazprom instead of its then-current German supplier.

Andrej Babiš has been quoted many times as saying that he would like to be the next Prime Minister of the Czech Republic if ANO 2011 leads the government.

According to the documents of the Nation's Memory Institute in Slovakia, during the rule of the communist régime in then Czechoslovakia Babiš collaborated with the StB (State Security Police), under the code name agent Bureš. He denies the accusations and in 2012 sued the institute for defamation. In January 2018, the Bratislava regional court ruled definitively that Babiš was an StB agent. This final court case may not be appealed.

Andrej Babiš was a winner of the antiecologic prize Green Pearl for the antiecologic sentences of the year 2013: "We all gave a shit about democracy once. How to explain that regarding the construction of a new highway, (someone has the right to talk about) a badger, an ecological terrorist and that each mayor wants an exit (to his town)."

He has been criticized by media and opposition politicians for his alleged conflict of interest as the Minister of Finance and owner of the companies subsidized by EU funding programmes. During a visit to the Czech Republic in March 2014, the German Member of the European Parliament Ingeborg Gräßle expressed concerns that a person with such a massive personal financial interest simultaneously being a leading representative of a state, cannot guarantee to the EU that its resources are properly distributed. A 2014 article in the political newspaper Politico expressed the situation in stark terms: "The Czech Republic is now a paradox: a society disgusted with corruption has given huge power to a man whose Business interests amount to the biggest conflict of interest in the country’s post-1989 history."

On 18 June 2015, Babiš admitted he had a folder with Šincl's name, but declined that he intimidated Šincl, saying, "It's not the materials. It's articles from media. Do media write lies? I just showed what media write, I think they do their job well. When I go to a meeting, I prepare myself so I know who I am dealing with." Babiš's coalition partners ČSSD (Šincl's party) and KDU-ČSL demanded an apology but Babiš refused to do so and claimed that Šincl had lied about him in the Parliament. Bohuslav Sobotka, Czech Prime Minister and the chairman of ČSSD called on a coalition meeting on the same day.

On 1 September 2016, while visiting Varnsdorf, a city with large Romani minority presence Babiš said: "What those idiots [journalists] write in newspapers, that the camp in Lety was a concentration camp, that is a lie, it was a labor camp, people who didn't work ended up there." Babiš was heavily criticized for his words by both coalition partners and opposition MPs calling on him to resign. Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka posted a condemnation of the remarks on Facebook, saying that "between populism and extremism there is a thin line and Babiš crossed it" and asked him to "properly apologize and visit Lety to learn about history of our state."

Babiš was accused of illegally obtaining €2 million in EU subsidies designated for small businesses by concealing his ownership of a farm and a convention center called "Storks Nest". Czech police requested that his parliamentary immunity be lifted by the Lower House repeatedly in September and November 2017. In both cases Lower House lifted the immunity and the police have initiated Criminal proceedings. He was accused from the crime for the alleged fraud (§212,Criminal Code, 2009) and for wilful damage of the financial interests of the European Union (§ 260, Criminal Code, 2009) in the Criminal conspiracy (§ 89, Art.17, Crime Code (the Czechoslovakian Criminal Code,1961).

In February 2018, his cabinet approved the European Fiscal Compact and sent it to the Chamber of Deputies for further approval and proposed changes to the civil Service act which has been subject of controversy since it was applied in 2015 by the previous government of Bohuslav Sobotka where Babiš served as Minister of Finance.