page_title: Andrej Babiš
section_title: Alleged EU-subsidies fraud
hierarchical_section_title: Andrej Babiš / Controversies / Alleged EU-subsidies fraud
caption_attribution_description: Čeština: Aréna jízdárny ve tvaru čapího hnízda. Čapí hnízdo na území obce Olbramovice ve Středočeském kraji. Česká republika. Camera location49°&#160;41′&#160;03.82″&#160;N, 14°&#160;39′&#160;05.35″&#160;E&#160;&#160;&#160;View this and other nearby images on: OpenStreetMap - Google Earth
context_page_description: Andrej Babiš is a Czech politician serving as the Prime Minister of the Czech Republic since December 2017 and the founding leader of ANO 2011 since 2012. He previously served as Minister of Finance and Deputy Prime Minister from 2014 to 2017. Prior to entering politics, he was a businessman.
  Born in Bratislava in present-day Slovakia, Babiš moved to the Czech Republic following the Velvet Revolution. During a lengthy business career, he rose to become the second richest man in the Czech Republic, with an estimated net worth of about $4.04 billion according to Bloomberg. Much of this wealth came from his time as CEO and owner of the Agrofert Group, which owns two of the largest Czech newspapers, Mladá fronta DNES and Lidové noviny.
  Babiš entered politics in 2012, forming ANO 2011. Despite being a new party, ANO 2011 performed strongly at the 2013 election, finishing just three seats behind winners ČSSD. He was duly appointed Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance by Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka. In May 2017, Sobotka sacked Babiš following a crisis triggered by allegations that Babiš avoided paying taxes when CEO of Agrofert.
context_section_description: 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 the Lower House lift his parliamentary immunity on two occasions, in September and November 2017. In both cases the Lower House lifted the immunity and the police have initiated criminal proceedings. He is accused of the crime of alleged fraud (§212,Criminal Code, 2009) and of wilful damage to 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).
  This case was investigated by the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF). OLAF's final report was delivered to the Czech officers of the Ministry of Finance on 27 December 2017. Journalist Sabina Slonková published a report of the results on the website Neovlivni.cz on 3 January 2018, concluding that OLAF's final report confirmed the results of the investigation by the Czech Police and prosecutors that the fraud was planned from the beginning. The complete text of the final report translated into Czech was published on the website aktualne.cz on 11 January 2018, with a commentary by Vladimir Piskacek, one of the directors of the Economia AS media company, which publishes Hospodářské noviny, defending the right to publish information openly. In April 2019 the police recommended indicting Babiš on the charge of fraud. Babiš subsequently replaced the Minister of Justice with an ally, Marie Benešová, leading to a series of protests across the country that continued into May 2019 and culminated in the protest on 23 June 2019, which with about 250,000 people became the largest Czech protest since the Velvet Revolution of November 1989.
caption: An equestrian facility of the farm resembles stork's nest.
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