Author: Vojtěch Berger
Almost unnoticed remain the contacts with radical nationalists abroad mantained by parties of the emerging Czech governing coalition. The youth wing of the main coalition party ANO met recently with “All-Polish Youth”, which published a video of an EU flag being burned. Another minor coalition party Svobodní maintains relations with Slovakia’s post-fascist Republika movement and with Hungary’s Mi Hazánk party, which would like to annex western Ukraine. Other coalition party SPD has its long-time favorites in the extremist wing of Germany’s AfD.
Although ANO claims that, as the main force in the emerging governing coalition, it will not change the pro-Western orientation of the Czech Republic, its entry last year into the European Parliament faction Patriots for Europe fundamentally changed the rules of the game.
This is not only about the personal ties of Andrej Babiš or his close associate Tünde Bartha to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and his circle, or Austria’s Freedom Party with its strong extremist wing – another founding force of the “Patriots.”
By withdrawing from liberal European structures, ANO automatically turned toward a completely different set of partners and stopped shying away from radical nationalists.
Nationalist youth networking
A good example is the visit of Hugo Chadima, vice-chair of ANO’s youth wing, at a meeting of “All-Polish Youth” less than a month after the Czech parliamentary elections, where he gave a lecture about what would happen next in Czechia.
All-Polish Youth is a radically nationalist movement whose vocabulary regularly includes phrases like “Poland for Poles”, opposition to migration, and demands for German reparations for World War II.
Incidentally, the same organization that invited Hugo Chadima celebrated on Facebook in early October the Polish annexation of the „Těšínsko“ region at the today Czech-Poland border in 1938, adding a note about the “immoral diplomacy” of then Czechoslovak president and former foreign secretary Edvard Beneš.
All-Polish Youth is also one of the co-organizers of the massive Independence March. This year, the organization posted a video on social media showing participants burning the flag of the European Union.
This year’s Independence March was attended – according to social media posts – also by Martin Kuziel, vice-chair of the regional branch of the „Svobodní“ (Free Citizens) Party in the Zlín Region of Czechia. Kuziel presents himself within the party as the person responsible for foreign relations, including ties with the British far-right party Homeland. Svobodní Party is one of the minor coalition partners in the emerging government.
In photos from Poland, Kuziel also showed off his meeting with representatives of Slovakia’s Republika movement. Republika was founded in 2021 as a splinter from Marian Kotleba’s better-known extremist party People’s Party Our Slovakia. Today it has two MEPs. One of them, Milan Mazurek—who in 2019 lost his parliamentary seat in Slovakia due to anti-Roma statements—personally endorsed the chairman of Svobodní Party, Libor Vondráček, before the 2025 October elections in Czechia.
Carving up a defeated Ukraine
The Svobodní Party also had representatives at the October meeting of youth groups from the European Parliament faction Europe of Sovereign Nations (ESN) in Budapest. Members of ESN include, for example, Slovakia’s Republika and the Czech SPD of Tomio Okamura. The Hungarian party Mi Hazánk (Our Homeland) invited the young cadres of these parties to Hungary.
Mi Hazánk’s leader László Toroczkai declared last year that Hungary should claim the westernmost Transcarpathian region of Ukraine if the country loses its statehood as a result of the war with Russia. This November, Toroczkai discussed the issue of Transcarpathia again in Russia – directly with former President Dmitry Medvedev.
Another Czech minor coalition partner, SPD, mantains its long-standing ties to the extremist wing of Germany’s AfD – especially to its now-dissolved youth organization Junge Alternative. German domestic intelligence considers the AfD youth to be extremists, due in part to numerous incidents involving the propagation of neo-Nazism.
Several of these incidents have been repeatedly described by HlídacíPes.org. The SPD has always failed to respond or comment on the growing evidence of extremism among its German partners.
Cross-border extremism
The party also failed to comment on following case: Several members of the so-called Saxon Separatists remain in custody in Germany; they had planned an armed coup in the eastern part of the country modeled on Nazi methods. One of them, Kurt Hättasch, participated in a 2023 event with the Czech SPD in Ústí nad Labem.
Another member of the Junge Alternative who was also present at the SPD event in Ústí, Lennard Scharpe, attended the Budapest gathering this October with the participation of the Czech Svobodní Party. This also shows how the circle of far-right contacts closes and intertwines across countries, parties, and European Parliament factions.
Junge Alternative dissolved itself this year because of extremism, but work is already underway in Germany to revive it under a different name. According to German media, it is likely that radicals will again dominate the new organization.
The former head of the nationwide Junge Alternative, Damian Lohr, visited the Czech Parliament during the inaugural meeting of the Chamber of Deputies in October. The chairman of Svobodní Party, Libor Vondráček, posted a joint photo with him.
Contacts between Czech SPD and the youth wing of AfD have also been noted by authorities in neighboring Germany. The Saxon branch of domestic intelligence stated in its report last year that “Freedom and Direct Democracy is a right-wing extremist party in the Czech Republic”, evidently due to SPD’s ties to German extremists.
