On 7 May 2021, the cash register of right-wing conservative think tank New Direction was repeatedly ringing. Three Czech companies each donated 16,000 euros: the Somecs Institute, art gallery Galerie Gema, and environmental reporting and consultancy firm Redbrick.

The art gallery was where Kamil Bahbouh’s career began in 1990, shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Born the son of a Syrian refugee in 1967, he quickly made a name for himself in the Czech art world. According to Bahbouh’s CV, his gallery supplied paintings for the office of then Czech President Václav Havel, the parliament building, and the central bank in Prague.

These were turbulent years. The sudden fall of the Communist regime made way for Wild West capitalism, even in the art world. Bahbouh was twice accused of stealing dozens of paintings by German gallery owner Martin George Weber and Czech painter Jitka Válová.

According to the Czech media, scandal and controversy continue to follow the businessman: fraud accusations during the renovation of a military airport, money disappearing during a job for the security services, and then there were the tabloid press reports of his short-lived relationship with Miss Czech Republic 2009.

Meanwhile, the entrepreneur was steadily building his business empire. The art gallery would be expanded with an auction house and a branch that dealt with the restoration of historical buildings in the Czech Republic and Middle East.

And there are several other markets in which the businessman is equally at home. Bahbouh founded the ICT consultancy company Qed Systems in 1995, the environmental reporting and consultancy firm Redbrick in 2005, the Somecs Institute which sells data and network analysis software to HR departments in 2009, and the recycling company Watech a few years after that.

The company records often bear the signature of his wife, Stepánka Bahbouhová, and Bahbouh regularly changes his role within the companies. Sometimes he is a director or shareholder, at other times the chairman or manager.

All these companies have one thing in common: they have all been making donations to a largely unknown political think tank in Brussels for years.

Right-wing conservatives

The think tank, New Direction, was founded in 2009 by Dutch House of Representatives member Derk Jan Eppink and had as its patron the former British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. The think tank is closely linked to the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group, a collective of right-wing conservative political parties in the European Parliament. Until Brexit, the ECR was the political vehicle of the British Conservative Party in Brussels, but now the party is dominated by the Polish ruling party PiS and Fratelli d’Italia, the party of the Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni.

The ECR has 64 of the 705 seats in the European Parliament, making it much smaller than the Social Democrats and the Christian Democrats. But both the ECR think tank and the party (which collect donations separately) collect a much higher amount in donations than the powerful blocs in parliament that rely more on membership contributions.

That day early in 2021 when three different Czech companies made donations to New Direction was not the only time when large sums were credited to the think tank’s account on a single day. On 26 April and 4 September 2018, three of Bahbouh’s companies (Watech, Galerie Gema and Qed Systems) transferred a total of 48,000 euros. Since 2017, a total of 208,000 euros was transferred to the think tank.

Now, in principle, every person, foundation or company is free to make donations, but Bahbouh’s donations are a problem. He violates the regulation, laid down in a European ordinance, that prohibits ‘natural or legal persons’ from donating more than 18,000 euros per year to a European partisan think tank such as New Direction. This limit is set to prevent these types of bodies from being influenced by or dependent upon a single donor.

However, because these donations came from different companies, it was not clear at first glance that the powerful man behind all of them was Kamil Bahbouh.

On 18 April 2023, something strange happened: documents which showed donations to European political parties and their affiliated think tanks were altered. In the case of a 16,000 euro donation to think tank New Direction, the name of the donor was removed and replaced by an asterisk (*) accompanied by the message: ‘Currently undergoing additional scrutiny by the Authority’.

‘The Authority’, as the regulator calls itself, was indeed investigating the Czech businessman’s donations to New Direction.

Because Follow the Money was monitoring all donations to EU parties and their think tanks since the beginning of the year, it quickly became clear that the donor now under suspicion was the Somecs Institute, Bahbouh's Prague-based company which provides data and network analysis software to HR departments.

Two months later, on 20 June 2023, the document in question was altered again. The blank space next to the 16,000 euro donation was now filled in with the name of another Czech company: Podnikatelská druzstevní zálozna (PDZ), a lending company founded by … Kamil Bahbouh.

Follow the Money submitted a request that the regulator make public documents about these and other dubious donations. This request was largely rejected due to the Authority’s claim that the ongoing investigation would be jeopardised by such a disclosure. FTM was sent a list of documents, emails, notes and correspondence that the regulator does not want made public, which show that the Authority is investigating the lawfulness of the donations made from the Czech Republic.

To date, the regulator has not imposed any sanctions on New Direction. In addition, the investigation only began in November 2022, which raises the question of how the regulator could have missed the earlier signals. In 2019, for example, New Direction received two donations from companies with almost the same name: QED Group and Qed Systems. And in 2018 and 2021, as mentioned earlier, donations from various Czech companies were transferred to the Brussels think tank on the same day. These are blatantly suspicious transactions that did not lead to an investigation by the Authority.

In any case, the Authority has rarely taken action. 

Although the Authority is an independent body on paper, it’s funded by the Parliament it’s supposed to check up on

The regulator could impose fines of three times the value of illegally received donations, but it has never done so since its inception in 2014. This is partly due to the limits placed on the Authority when it comes to investigation. For example, the regulator may not ask the donor – whether company or individual – any questions. 

Another problem is that although the Authority is an independent body on paper, its funding comes out of the budget of the European Parliament. It is the political parties, which are the entities that the regulator is supposed to check up on, that must agree to the allocation from the budget and decide on what the Authority may and may not investigate.

‘It’s all reported, investigated and approved’ 

In the absence of sanctions, New Direction, currently led by Polish MEP Tomasz Poręba, claims to be unaware of any wrongdoing. Board member Rob Roos, a Dutch MEP, told Follow the Money that there was nothing untoward regarding the donations. ‘All donations have been reported, investigated and approved.’ And he emphasized that strict controls take place and that New Direction’s financial department ‘does very good work’. Despite repeated requests, New Direction refuses to offer any further explanation.

‘That donation to New Direction is incorrectly registered, it was not from Bahbouh’ 

The Czech businessman himself has not responded to repeated requests for interviews, nor answered questions from Follow the Money. FTM did receive a response from Robert Zelenka, the CEO of PDZ, Bahbouh’s lending company that donated 16,000 euros to New Direction last year. Zelenka is a lawyer and has been working for Bahbouh in various positions since at least 2009.

He said that Bahbouh is a ‘key figure’ at PDZ, but that the donation to New Direction was incorrectly registered and actually came from another donor. As a financial institution, PDZ would have merely facilitated the transaction. However, when FTM asks in writing who the actual donor is, there is no response.

The lawyer claims that Bahbouh can only speak for the company Qed Systems and not for the other companies because the businessman is not a shareholder there. Zelenka does not comment on the fact that Bahbouh has held various management positions at the other companies.

This seems to be the Czech businessman’s modus operandi. Every now and then, he changes his company position on paper, as do his associates. Karolina Rutová is the chair of PDZ’s control committee, but she also worked for Galerie Gema. Barbara Klimsová is chairwoman of Wastech, was in charge of Redbrick on paper, and worked at a handful of other companies affiliated with Bahbouh.

Adventurer

Why does a businessman in Prague use his network of companies to transfer tens of thousands of euros every year to a right-wing conservative think tank in Brussels? Is Bahbouh angling for political favours? Are there right-wing conservative positions that he is passionate about?

New Direction and the regulator are unwilling or unable to answer these questions. The answer also doesn’t lie in the annual reports of Bahbouh’s companies or what is published about him in the Czech media.

Sources say he’s not the kind of man to be pushed around

Sources around the Czech ruling party ODS – member of the ECR faction in the European Parliament and therefore affiliated with New Direction – describe Bahbouh as an adventurer, someone who chooses his own path. He is not the kind of man to be pushed around by anyone.

This is also the claim of Robert Zelenka, the lending company CEO who presents himself as a spokesperson for Bahbouh. He wrote to FTM that he had ‘no information about any reciprocal services or any benefits our clients would be receiving “in return” for their donations.’ Zelenka’s clients, including Bahbouh, would make donations because they support New Direction’s ideas and beliefs. It’s a legitimate argument, except for the fact that the regulations on how much money can be donated have been violated.

The Authority for European Political Parties and European Political Foundations – the regulator – does not wish to comment on its ongoing investigations. It may take a long time before they become more open about this business: the regulator can open an investigation into the lawfulness of a donation up to five years after a donation has been made.