Czech President Petr Pavel has repeatedly said in the past that he has a problem with the nomination of Filip Turk due to his controversial statements.
On Wednesday, Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš will hand over to President Petr Pavlov a proposal to appoint MP Filip Turk as Minister of the Environment. He said this on Monday after the government meeting, reports TASR in Prague. “We discussed it in the morning at the coalition (coalition council, note TASR) and at the request of the Motorists, I will take it there,” the prime minister responded to the question of whether he would also submit a proposal to the president at the joint New Year’s lunch at Prague Castle on Wednesday to appoint the honorary president of the Motorists to the position of head of the Department of the Environment.
Babiš recently stated in an interview for Deník that the Turk should get a chance. “For me, Mr. Turek is the face of Motorists. He won the European and de facto our elections for them. The stupid and unacceptable things that he should have done in the past, he mostly denies or somehow defends himself. If he did them, it is of course unacceptable, but he probably deserves to get a chance,” said Babiš at the time.
On Monday, upon arriving at the coalition council, the Turk reiterated that the Motorists do not have another candidate for the Minister of the Environment. He hopes that the president will change his opinion about him. At the same time, he pointed out that it is the government of the prime minister and not the president.
Pavel has repeatedly stated in the past that he has a problem with the nomination of a Turk and, according to him, he should not be a member of the government at all. After meeting with him shortly before Christmas, he stated that a person with the behavior and demeanor of the Turk could not be a minister. At the same time, he assumed that the prime minister would not nominate him as a minister for these reasons. Pavel then emphasized that the prime minister is obliged to protect constitutional values.
