Czechia’s Voters Just Sent Brussels a Message

A big election victory for the patriotic candidate in Czechia sends a message to Brussels, Macron is looking more under threat than ever following another government collapse, and the EU Parliament just handed immunity to an Antifa activist accused of beating people in the street. Jacob Reynolds is joined by Richard Schenk and Agnieszka Kolek to dissect this weeks political news.

CZECH PATRIOTS SAY NO TO BRUSSELS

Czechia has just delivered another jolt to the complacent political class. The usual Brussels playbook, from cry “Russia!” to censoring the internet, and hope the voters stay docile, finally failed. 

We dissect why the patriotic candidate Andrej Babiš won so convincingly, how a coalition of technocrats and pirates collapsed under its own contradictions, and what a more pro-industry, pro-nuclear Central Europe might mean for the future of the Green Deal.

MACRON HAS TO GO
Across the border, Emmanuel Macron finds himself in yet another political crisis. This one so farcical that even the French press has stopped pretending it’s clever. Governments are being appointed and collapsing within a day; fiscal discipline has evaporated; and the centrist illusion that France can be governed by technocratic flair alone lies in ruins. The discussion turns to the deeper truth: Macronism didn’t fail - it was empty from the beginning.

EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT PROTECTS ANTIFA THUGS
And finally to Strasbourg, where the European Parliament has reminded everyone that its commitment to the “rule of law” depends entirely on who is being judged. This week MEPs refused to lift the immunity of Italian Antifa activist Ilaria Salis, accused in Hungary of taking part in a violent street assault using chains and batons against bystanders in Budapest in 2023. Having been elected to the Parliament precisely to obtain immunity from prosecution, Salis was protected by a secret ballot decided by a single vote, while, on the same day, Polish conservative MEPs were stripped of their immunity in an open vote. The contrast could not be starker. It demonstrates how the institutional culture of Brussels now tolerates, and in practice legitimises, a strain of systemic left-wing political violence under the banner of “European values.”

Featuring
Host: Jacob Reynolds – Head of Policy, MCC Brussels
Guests: Richard Schenk – Research Fellow, MCC Brussels
and Agnieszka Kolek – Head of Cultural Engagement, MCC Brussels