Andrej Babiš

Andrej Babiš was born on 2 September 1954 in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia (now Slovakia), to a Slovak father from Hlohovec and a Carpathian German mother from Yasinia, now Zakarpattia Oblast, Ukraine. His father, a diplomat and member of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ), represented Czechoslovakia during the negotiation of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in Geneva and as a consultant at the United Nations. On his mother's side, he is the nephew of Ervin and Viera Scheibner.

Babiš spent part of his childhood abroad and was educated in Paris and Geneva. He continued his studies at a gymnasium and the University of Economics in Bratislava, where he studied international trade. In 1978, after graduating, he joined the Slovak state-controlled international trading company Chemapol Bratislava, which later became Petrimex. In 1985, he was appointed as the organisation's representative in Morocco. He joined the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia in 1980. During the 1980s, he was an agent for the Czechoslovak state security service (StB). Babiš denies knowingly being an agent of StB, but his legal challenges against the Slovak National Memory Institute were unsuccessful. It is alleged that he was also in contact with the Soviet KGB.

Babiš returned to Czechoslovakia from Morocco in 1991, after the Velvet Revolution, and settled in the Czech Republic after the dissolution of Czechoslovakia.

In January 1993, Babiš became managing director of Agrofert, a newly established Petrimex subsidiary operating in the Czech Republic. He had suggested establishing Agrofert while he was a director at Petrimex, during which time Agrofert was recapitalised by OFI, a company of unknown ownership based in Baar, Switzerland, which took control of Agrofert from Petrimex. Petrimex later fired Babiš and unsuccessfully sued him for allowing the firm's stake in Agrofert to be diluted. Soon thereafter, Babiš emerged as the 100% owner of Agrofert. The source of the initial financing for Babiš's takeover of Agrofert from Petrimex remained undisclosed as of the start of 2016, although Babiš has said that the money came from his former schoolmates in Switzerland.

Babiš gradually developed Agrofert into one of the largest companies in the country, starting as a wholesale and trading firm, but later acquiring various agricultural, food processing, and chemical companies. In 2011, Agrofert Holding consisted of more than 230 companies, mainly in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Germany. It is the fourth largest company in the Czech Republic by revenue, exceeding CZK 117 billion. The history of Agrofert, detailed in a book by the journalist Tomáš Pergler, is closely linked to its control of the Czech petrochemicals industry. One reviewer of the book said the account "captures much of what has led Czechs to the conviction that they live in a corrupted, clientist country – and (paradoxically) then to vote for the ANO movement." Upon entering politics, Babiš resigned as CEO, but nevertheless remained sole owner until February 2017, when he was legally obliged to put his companies in a trust to remain as Minister of Finance.

While Babiš's business activities initially focused mainly on agriculture, he later acquired a large empire of media companies. In 2013, Agrofert purchased the company MAFRA, publisher of two of the biggest Czech newspapers, Lidové noviny and Mladá fronta DNES, and operator of the Óčko television company. Agrofert also owned Radio Impuls, the most listened to radio station in the Czech Republic (as of late 2014). These acquisitions have led critics to question Babiš's political motives, amid accusations that he was amassing too much power, and that the media outlets he controls publish sympathetic coverage of him.

As of 15 October 2025, Babiš is again the sole owner of Agrofert. On 20 February 2026, Babiš transferred ownership of the company to the private RSVP Trust fund.

Babiš lives in Průhonice, where he had a luxury villa built in 2004, and owns several other properties there as well.

Babiš's first wife was physician Beata (later Beatrice) Adamičová, a schoolmate, whom he married in the 1970s. They had two children, Adriana (born 1979) and Andrej (born 1982), both of whom were involved in the Stork's Nest case. Since 2007 Adriana has been married to Agrofert manager Martin Bobek.

Since the 1990s Babiš has lived with his former secretary Monika Herodesová (born 1974), with whom he has two children, Vivien and Frederik. Both Monika and her brother Martin Herodes were also involved in the Stork's Nest case.

In 2013, Monika changed her surname to Babišová, and they married in 2017. The couple split in April 2024. Babiš holds dual citizenship of the Czech Republic and Slovakia. He gained Czech citizenship in 2000 by declaration, while maintaining his Slovak citizenship by descent as both of his parents are Slovak citizens. Babiš repeatedly declared himself to be a Czech national. During the campaign for the 2023 presidential election, he stated: "I'm not a Slovak, I'm a Czech."

In 2019, Babiš described himself as irreligious but spiritual, referring to the cosmos as a source of inspiration. During the campaign for the 2023 Czech presidential election, he declared himself as an occasional church-goer with a devotion to the Infant Jesus of Prague. These claims were disputed by commentators and the media as a part of mobilisation campaign aimed at the religious electorate.

In 2011, Babiš founded his party, ANO, "to fight corruption and other ills in the country's political system." The party contested the parliamentary elections in October 2013 and emerged as the second largest party, with 47 seats (of 200) in the Chamber of Deputies. The American political consulting firm, Penn Schoen Berland, was credited with the party's successful result.

In the subsequent coalition government, formed of the Social Democrats, ANO, and the Christian Democrats, Babiš served as the Minister of Finance. During his tenure in this role, Babiš introduced controversial policies such as electronic registration of sales, known as EET, proposed reverse charging of value-added tax, and VAT control statement for companies. His critics claimed he was tightening regulations on small and medium-sized enterprises and sole proprietorships while turning a blind eye to big corporations, to the benefit of his own Agrofert holding. During this time, he stated many times that he would like to be the next prime minister if ANO led the government.

In May 2015, after the government's decision to extend reduced taxation of biofuels (a segment of the fuel market controlled significantly by companies in the Agrofert portfolio), the opposition initiated a vote of no confidence against the cabinet. On 26 May 2015, while speaking to the Chamber of Deputies, Babiš said that he was forced to enter politics because of "corrupted opposition" (referring to ODS) that "created him". In November 2016, Babiš criticized alleged links among CEFC China Energy, the Czech Social Democratic Party, and Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka, saying that CEFC's focus on private Czech companies "brings no yield to the Czech Republic."

Controversies

Pandora Papers

In October 2021, Babiš was named in the Pandora Papers leak. He did not declare the use of an offshore investment company in the purchase of 16 properties, including two villas, in Mougins on the French Riviera for £18.5 million. The British newspaper The Guardian wrote that in 2009 Babiš, through a "convoluted offshore structure" "to hide ownership of the companies or property" and "secret loans", moved funds from the Czech Republic without taxation to buy real estate in France, including the Château Bigaud in Mougins. Babiš denied any wrongdoing, and alleged that the timing and/or content of the leak was aimed at influencing the upcoming parliamentary election. Jiří Pehe, director of New York University's academic center in Prague, said that Babiš "definitely lost some voters because of this scandal." On 12 May 2026, Seznam Zprávy reported that the French police had concluded their investigation of Babiš's real estate purchases in France.

Cooperation with StB

According to the documents of the National Memory Institute in Slovakia, Babiš collaborated with the State Security Police (StB) of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, under the code name agent Bureš. He denies the accusations, and in 2012 sued the institute for defamation. In January 2018, the Bratislava regional court ruled definitively that Babiš was an StB agent. This final court case may not be appealed.

Twelve unrelated cases investigated by StB from 1982 to 1985 were associated with the code name Bureš, according to the Slovak National Memory Institute. Babiš appeared once at the court during the process. The District Court in Bratislava issued a ruling on 26 June 2014 that there was insufficient evidence to put Andrej Babiš on a list of intentional cooperators with StB. The decision was criticised in the Slovak press, and the National Memory Institute announced it would appeal to a higher court. On 30 June 2015, Bratislava's Regional Court upheld the verdict. In October 2017, the Slovak Constitutional Court upheld the National Memorial Institute's appeal, annulling the earlier court decisions and finding that Babiš had been an agent of the former Communist secret police. His final appeal against the decision was dismissed by the constitutional court in February 2024.

Babiš has also been accused of using his StB background and Communist party connections to enrich himself. Babiš has denied that he was an StB collaborator, but his close associates include Czech lawyer Libor Široký, now chairman of Agrofert's supervisory board, who is reportedly also a former member of one of the StB units most closely linked to the Soviet KGB. Critics who accuse him of KGB connections also point to his alleged support for the 2014 Russian annexation of Crimea, and his opposition to international sanctions against Russia. When a Lebanese arms dealer with alleged Russian connections was released by Czech authorities instead of being extradited to the United States, and it was revealed that every official involved in the release was an ANO party member or was associated with Babiš, he was again accused of having an allegiance to Russia. Opposition MP Miroslav Kalousek (TOP 09) said that it no longer mattered what information the Slovak National Memory Institute had about Babiš, because his behaviour as a politician had proven his StB training.

In March 2015, Babiš condemned Russia's annexation of Crimea. In October 2015, Anne Applebaum, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist specialising in Russian and Eastern European affairs, listed Babiš among several Eastern European leaders she considered to be agents of influence for Putin's Russia. Writing in The Washington Post, she suggested that old labels from Soviet Communist days, such as "useful idiots" and "fellow travellers", were no longer adequate to describe Babiš and the other figures she had named. To illustrate her point, she listed several quotes from each leader that sounded very similar to each other and to the arguments broadcast at the same time by official Russian news sources.

Babiš responded to Applebaum with a letter to The Washington Post stating that he had no friends in Russia and was an American ally. US journalist Gabriel Meyr challenged those claims by citing three examples of actions Babiš has taken that have furthered Russian policy goals, such as a Czech government loan guarantee to a Russian company with a record of defaults, owned by a close friend of Russian president Vladimir Putin. The final example was that Babiš had disclosed in 2007 that Agrofert was negotiating to purchase gas from the Czech subsidiary of Gazprom instead of its German supplier.

In February 2016, on the day commemorating the 1948 Czechoslovak coup d'état by the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, hundreds of protesters opposed to Babiš gathered in Wenceslas Square to protest that Babiš was advancing an agenda that would infringe Czech freedoms, described by leaders of the protest as a quiet revolution, happening in gradual steps.