In February, Primagra from the Agrofert holding filed a lawsuit with the Court of Justice of the European Union against the European Commission. It wants to release subsidies blocked on the basis of an audit of a possible conflict of interest of Prime Minister Andrej Babiš. The court is currently considering whether the action is admissible. iROZHLAS, reports. Agrofert belongs to trust funds in which Babiš invested shares in its companies.
Primagra filed a lawsuit on February 5. “I can confirm that we are dealing with the case,” court spokesman Balázs Lehóczki told the server . Agrofert spokesman Karel Hanzelka also confirmed the filing of the lawsuit. “The applicant requests the Court to set aside the ban on the provision of grants supported the defendant’s letter dated 22 October 2020 and order the defendant to pay the costs,” said enterprise server demand with reference to a basic description of the action on the web Court.
The company first argues that Brussels violated its rights by not being able to be heard during the audit procedure, writes iROZHLAS. In addition, according to Primagra, the European Commission should not examine specific projects, but focus on the subsidy system.
According to the final audit report published by the European Commission at the end of April, Babiš controls the trust funds in which it invested the shares of its companies in 2017 due to the Conflict of Interest Act. According to the audit, Babiš is in a conflict of interest and Agrofert is not entitled to any subsidies from the EU structural funds from 9 February 2017, when the amendment to the Czech Conflict of Interest Act came into force.
Babiš described the audit as purposeful and manipulated. The Prime Minister and other representatives of the government have repeatedly stated that there are two legal opinions in the matter, between which an independent court should decide. Agrofert also denies any wrongdoing from the outset, noting that the authorities did not communicate with him about the inspection.