Ex-chief of Czech diplomacy to lead socialists in EU election

11 months ago 37

Previously a strong player on the Czech political scene, Social Democracy nominated former foreign and culture minister and former lower house speaker Lubomir Zaorálek to lead the party’s list for next year’s EU elections.

SOCDEM leader Michal Šmarda told iDnes.cz on Monday the party would present other names of the candidates in mid-January and that three to four women should be in the first five spots on the list. The current non-parliamentary party is still negotiating cooperation with other entities.

Zaorálek headed the lower house from 2002 to 2006 and later served as diplomacy head in Bohuslav Sobotka’s (ČSSD) government from 2014 to 2017.

In 2019, Zaorálek also joined the cabinet of Andrej Babis (ANO) as culture minister, although he criticised the cooperation between the then ČSSD and ANO in the government. In June, he returned to the leadership of SOCDEM after about five years.

SOCDEM, formerly one of the two main political forces, and the Civic Democrats (ODS, ECR) are planning a comeback. It now has no deputies in the lower house of the parliament, while it has only one representative in the Senate. The following general elections will be in 2025.

SOCDEM did not enter the EU Parliament following the last elections in 2019, although MEP Radka Maxová now represents the party in the S&D Group after leaving ANO and Renew in 2020.

According to current estimates by the STEM/MARK agency, SOCDEM could reach the threshold of five per cent in the European elections next year.

(Ondřej Plevák | Euractiv.cz)