European Parliament decision to prohibit the adoption of minority governance structures that receive EU funding
Members of the European Parliament are proposing to implement the rule of law that includes withdrawing EU subsidies for the commercial interests of Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis in a draft resolution that will be voted on Wednesday by the committee’s budget control committee. It is the first time that an EU institution has encouraged the implementation of the anti-corruption standards in place since January on a case-by-case basis. According to the European Parliament, the politician has used his power for economic gain and affects the work of independent media as well as the judiciary, which can be considered a violation of the rule of law. The Czech prime minister has come under parliamentary criticism because a recent public inquiry into the use of EU funds found that he had used his position to acquire the agrochemical company Agrofert, which was eligible for EU funding. Thus, Babis violated the rules of conflict of interest in the European Union. It is estimated that Agrofert has received between 6.3 million euros and 11 million euros from the community budget in recent years. In the draft resolution, members of the European Parliament state that the commercial interests of the Czech Prime Minister should not receive funding from the European Union, must pay off current subsidies to the community or national budgets, and refrain from participating in any decision-making process affecting the Agrofert group. The most appropriate way to end conflicts of interest is to step aside, as the resolution proposal confirms, which also calls for tougher conflict of law rules at the European Union level. Parliament considers the Commission’s procedures to monitor the use of EU funds and recover irregularly spent funds insufficient and slow, and therefore urges their review. Members of the European Parliament are also concerned that weak EU legislation is making it difficult to identify the owners of companies that receive funding from the community. Therefore, it calls upon the Commission, in cooperation with the national authorities, to create a database containing a unified and publicly available list of the ultimate recipients of agricultural subsidies. In negotiations on reforming the Common Agricultural Policy, special attention must be given to ensuring that direct agricultural subsidies are distributed fairly and transparently. A ceiling for support for natural persons should be set, according to the draft text, whose authors “vehemently oppose” the emergence of the oligarchic structures that manage the EU budget. The allocation of the vast majority of agricultural resources and cohesion to a narrow minority must be prevented, and decision-makers in the European Union are encouraged to draw attention to them.
