EU Parliament VP breaks from national party, with sweeping consequences

Czech lawmaker Dita Charanzová will no longer run as a member of the European Parliament for the ANO 2011 party of former Prime Minister Andrej Babiš.

In an interview with a Czech daily newspaper, Charanzová, who’s a Parliament Vice President with the liberal Renew Group, expressed her discontent with the campaign Babiš ran leading up to the Czech presidential elections earlier this year, which he lost to Petr Pavel.

“I didn’t identify with that and I couldn’t explain it to my colleagues in the European Parliament,” she said.

Babiš himself drew the ire of the ALDE Party, the political party affiliated with the Renew Group, by participating in early May in the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Hungary, an offspring of a U.S. event, alongside Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. Babiš has been suspended from attending ALDE events. An evaluation of ANO’s commitment to the party’s values is ongoing.

“I am a liberal with liberal values and I refuse to be in a conservative and nationalistic camp,” Charanzová said in a statement to POLITICO.

As a result, Charanzová won’t stand for ANO during the next Parliament elections next year — and she didn’t elaborate on other possible options.

The move could have far-reaching consequences in the build-up to the elections. In the Parliament, ANO 2011 party is a member of the Renew Europe group. Charanzová was even one of Renew’s three Vice Presidents, and hence a member of the Parliament’s bureau — which has the final say over the planning of legislative files, budget, and logistics.

Charanzová was also a member of the powerful internal market committee and was involved in several high-profile digital files, such as the update of the bloc’s product safety rules and the new content moderation rulebook.

Ketrin Jochecová contributed reporting.