Igor Červený became the new Czech Minister of the Environment after several weeks of disputes between the Prague Castle and the Motoristi sebe party. President Pavel appointed Červený instead of Filip Turk, whom he rejected.
MP Igor Červený became the Czech Minister of the Environment. On Monday, President Petr Pavel appointed him to this position at the Prague Castle. This ended the dispute between the castle and the Motoristi seba party that lasted for several weeks over the fact that deputy Filip Turek, whom the president refused to appoint, should be the head of the department, reports the TASR correspondent in Prague.
Originally, Turek wanted to become the head of the Department of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of the Environment was to be managed by the chairman of Motorist Petr Macinka. However, Pavel made it clear in the media that he would not appoint Turk to this position due to the cases. The motorists therefore decided to make – in their view – a concession and exchanged nominations for the departments of diplomacy and the environment. However, this did not help, and Pavel Turk refused to be appointed head of any ministry. Macinka temporarily managed both resorts until Monday.
The president rejected the Turk
For a long time, motorists refused to nominate a candidate other than a Turk for the position of Minister of the Environment, and they accused the president of violating the constitution. According to them, he did not have the authority to reject the nominated candidate. Pavel did not agree with that. The only way this dispute could be resolved was to file a jurisdictional lawsuit against the president. However, the government did not want to do that. According to Macinka, because the Constitutional Court can change the legal environment and could thus add competences to Pavlo.
The dispute escalated at the end of January, when the president published text messages sent by Macinka to his adviser, accusing him of blackmail. For example, the head of Motorists wrote in the news that if Pavel appointed Turk as Minister of the Environment, he would have peace of mind or that he was ready to fight for Turk so “brutally” that it would become a big and long-lasting topic. However, according to him, it was not blackmail, but political negotiation.
Just two weeks ago, Macinka declared that Motoristi would not propose another candidate other than Turk, and that he himself is ready to lead both departments until the end of Pavlov’s mandate, i.e. another two years. He indicated that the future head of state could satisfy the Motorists and the Turk would finally become a minister. A week later, Prime Minister Andrej Babiš introduced a new candidate – Igor Červený.
