Social Democrats hit back at ANO and communists in lower house meeting over lithium

The Social Democrats criticised ANO and the Communist Party in a special session in the lower house on Monday for, in their view, artificially inflating an affair over lithium mining in the Czech Republic. ANO have slammed a memorandum recently signed by the Social Democrat-controlled Ministry of Industry with Australia’s European Metals Holdings Company for “selling out the national interest”.

Monday’s meeting was prompted by the opposition Communist Party, which likewise argued that lithium did not belong in foreign hands and should remain in the state’s.

Foreign Minister Lubomír Zaorálek defended the memorandum along with Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka who called the tactics by the leader of the ANO party, Andrej Babiš, an attempt to draw attention away from scandals over his own dealings.