According to Babiš, they agreed on an amicable political separation. “She has decided to end her membership of the YES movement because it does not fit with her plans for a future in non-partisan academia. I respect her decision and wish her good luck and success in her next stage of life.” said the ex-prime minister.
Jourová plans to take a break from active politics. “I want to continue to be beneficial to the Czech Republic, to use my experience in the academic sphere for it. I am looking forward to a new journey and academic freedom,” she noted. “Thank you for the great chance given to me by the ANO movement and the two Czech governments to represent Europe and the Czech Republic on the world stage,” added.
Regarding the ongoing cooperation, Věra Jourová also expressed herself in the Blesk studio. She wanted to discuss it in peace after the election uproar. “I have to think about it in the same way as the ANO movement probably thinks about it, because we differed a lot in terms of opinion. It’s absolutely obvious from the campaign that I disagree with a number of those things absolutely fundamentally,” she stated earlier for Blesk.
And at the same time, she admitted even then that it would not be easy for her to leave: “I was one of the founding members, I remember the ethos, the beginning, the fact that Andrej Babiš was a revelation to me at the beginning, you know, my grandfather was a big partisan, and suddenly the moment when someone here got involved in politics saying that he wants to inspire positive energy in people to do things that may be beyond them. This fascinated me I don’t know if the Bať ethos is still there. I would say that it has disappeared, that now it is more likely to strike a chord with people who are in some way resigned, I think that is some kind of change, but I have to think about it.”
Jourová was vice-president of ANO in 2013 and 2014, she was also briefly minister for local development in Bohuslav Sobotka’s government. She has been a European Commissioner since 2014, and for the last five years she has also been the vice-president of the commission. Last September, she stated that she would no longer run for a third term in the EU executive.
Next week, the ANO movement should announce the details of the establishment of a new faction in the European Parliament. According to Babiš, the program of the new group will be sovereignty, security, the fight against illegal migration and for changing the Green Deal for Europe.
Last week, Babiš announced that ANO would withdraw from the liberal faction Renew Europe and from the European party ALDE. According to him, the movement could not fulfill its program in them. According to the head of the faction Valéria Hayerová, the departure of ANO was a long-awaited divorce. At the time, she added on the X social network that ANO chose a populist path incompatible with the values and identity of liberals.
