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The Czech prime minister, Andrej Babiš, says it is important that none of the so-called “spitzenkandidats” received majority support to become president of the European Commission at a European Council meeting last week. Spitzenkandidats are the leaders of the parties in the European Parliament that did best in elections in May. Some of them don’t like the territory of the Visegrad Four countries, Mr. Babiš said at a conference on economic diplomacy at the Czech Foreign Ministry on Monday Morning.

The Czech leader said it was important that the successor to Jean-Claude Juncker not comment on political matters but rather focus on implementing the conclusions of the European Council.

Prime Minister Andrej Babiš says the Czech Republic doesn’t want a new president of the European Commission that would bring back migrant quotas. As he left for a summit in Brussels, he also said he would not now be discussing a Commission audit finding him in conflict of interest with its outgoing chief.

Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš remains defiant in the midst of a storm following the leaking of a preliminary EU audit which states that he has a conflict of interests and the country many have to return close to half a billion crowns in EU grants as a result. The prime minister insists that the country will not have to return anything and has refused a call for him to ask the lower house for a vote of confidence in his minority government.

Last week’s leaked preliminary EU Audit, which found Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš to be in a conflict of interests, continues to make headlines across the country. Mr. Babiš has denied any wrongdoing. Civil servants are now waiting for an official Czech translation to be sent after which they will send their state’s reply to the findings. I asked the director of the Transparency International’s Czech branch, David Ondračka, whether he thinks there is any chance the findings of the preliminary report will change in the final version.

Outgoing Slovak President Andrej Kiska has arrived in the Czech Republic for his final foreign trip as head of state. He was received by Czech president Miloš Zeman at Lány Chateau on Thursday afternoon.

Mr Kiska steps down in mid-June to be succeeded by Zuzana Čaputová. The first official visit of the newly elected Slovak president, who will be sworn in on June 15, will also lead to the Czech Republic.

Prime Minister Andrej Babiš’s ANO party, as expected, won the European Parliament elections held over the weekend, garnering 21.2% of the vote. A strong turnout – by Czech standards – is thought to have helped his and other mainstream parties fend off far-right and Eurosceptic populist parties.

Czechs have started voting in elections to the European Parliament with 841 candidates from 40 parties running for the country’s 21 seats in the assembly. Although the Czech Republic is the only country where voting is possible over the course of two days, voter turnout is traditionally expected to lag behind the EU average.

The Czech government is poised to amend the Food and Consumer Protection acts so as to ban the practice of “dual quality” sales of food and other products. If signed into law, retailers would be banned from selling inferior quality products that appear to be the same as superior ones sold elsewhere in the EU.

Radek Špicar is vice-president of the Czech Confederation of Industry. But since last year – spurred into action by the UK’s Brexit vote – he has also been travelling the length and breadth of the country trying to convince ordinary Czechs of the merits of remaining in the European Union. When we spoke, Špicar shared the insights he has gleaned from dozens of such public debates. But first I asked him why he felt the pro-EU atmosphere in Czech society prior to accession in 2004 had evidently dissipated so much.

Prime Minister Andrej Babiš has said he wants to slash the projected expenditures for the country’s EU presidency in the second half of 2022 by half. The projected expenditures for the presidency are currently at 2. 7 billion crowns, which the prime minister says he considers unnecessarily high.

In an interview for the daily Hospodářské noviny Babis said that in his view the cost of the presidency should not exceed 1.3 billion crowns, roughly 50 million euros. In 2020 the government is expected to spend 178 million crowns in preparatory works.