SPOLU to convene extraordinary lower-house meeting if PM doesn’t nominate Koudelka to lead BIS

If Prime Minister Andrej Babiš does not propose that the current director of the Czech Security Information Service (BIS) Michal Koudelka remains in charge of the Czech civilian counter-intelligence service for another five years, the opposition coalition SPOLU (Civic Democrats, Christian Democrats, TOP 09) threatens to call for an extraordinary meeting of the Chamber of Deputies. The leaders of the parties that make up the coalition made the announcement on Friday, saying that they have collected enough signatures from MPs to convey the meeting next week.

The threat comes after the Friday meeting of the Security Committee of the lower house of Parliament, which was meant to discuss reappointing Michal Koudelka as director of BIS, was called off. Committee chairman Radek Koten said in a letter to its members that there was no legal basis for convening the extraordinary meeting, which had been requested by Andrej Babiš. The Czech prime minister has since announced that he will discuss the nomination of the new BIS chief with Social Democrat Chairman Jan Hamáček.

The term of current BIS head Michal Koudelka, who took up the post in 2015, is set to end in mid-August. While he has the backing of Babiš and most committee members, President Miloš Zeman has been a vocal critic and refused to promote him to the customary rank of general.