Czech Republic received a letter from the European Commission in response to an earlier statement from the Ministry of Regional Development (MRD) on the audit of the conflict of interests with Prime Minister Andrej Babiš. The spokesman of the Ministry of Regional Development, Vilém Frček, did not want to specify the content of the letter yet. Czechia will wait for the official translation of the letter, then Czech politicians will have two months to reply. In April, the European Commission published the final audit report, according to which Babiš has a conflict of interest because he controls the trust funds in which his personal assets were invested. Babiš has been denying accusations for the duration of the whole audit. Czechia may only challenge the conclusions of the audit later on in court.
The EU Commission launched an audit in 2018 at the instigation of the anti-corruption organization Transparency International. The auditors’ completed the report at the end of 2019, and Brussels has been communicating with the Czech authorities since then.
“The auditors of the European Commission comment on several still open findings within the audit procedure and again request confidential treatment of information concerning open findings,” a spokesman for the Ministry of Regional Development told the iROZHLAS.cz.