Filip Turek European Parliament and the Overton Window
Filip Turek’s speech in English before the European Parliament sparked broad debate both inside and outside Czechia. His address, marked by nationalist references and a defiant tone, was translated and circulated by several European media outlets.
In the Czech Republic of 2025, racially motivated crimes are no longer isolated cases: they are routine. Filip Turek’s speech at the European Parliament exemplified how extremist rhetoric is now crossing into the political mainstream, widening the limits of what a democracy is willing to tolerate.
Official statistics disguise them, but the real numbers show a growing pattern of attacks, humiliation and discrimination against Roma people, foreigners and non-white residents.
The political climate
The political climate has decayed beyond imagination. Polls predict a likely alliance between Tomio Okamura, leader of the xenophobic SPD movement, and the group Motoristé sobě (“Motorists for Themselves”), a formation that mixes street populism with authoritarian sympathies.
Hatred as a political experiment
Within that context, the Motorists deliberately decided to open the Overton Window —to expand the limits of what is tolerable— by proposing as a leading figure Filip Turek, a politician known for his controversial statements about minorities and for provocative references to historical figures of fascism. (See also: The Far Right Mutating in Czechia).
According to Deník N, Turek once wrote on Facebook:
“Setting fire to something or someone is stupid, but the fact that a gypsy kid got burned should, if anything, be considered a mitigating circumstance.”
He was not speaking metaphorically. He referred to the case of Natálka Kudriková, a three-year-old Romani girl who in 2009 suffered burns on 80 percent of her body after four neo-Nazis threw Molotov cocktails at her home in Vítkov, Moravia.
The child survived with lifelong scars; the attackers were sentenced to more than twenty years in prison.
Symbols of the past turned into brand
Long before reaching Brussels, Turek had already built a public image linked to far-right symbols. In photographs published by media outlets and shared on social networks, he appears wearing a golden helmet with emblems related to the Greek party Golden Dawn, as well as objects decorated with historical Luftwaffe insignia (Jagdgeschwader 27) or a candle with a swastika.
He later explained that these were part of a hobby for military antiques, though the repetition of such gestures suggests at least a deliberate use of an aesthetic loaded with political meaning.
More than a personal detail, these symbols evoke a narrative of power and exclusion that, in today’s European context, deserves careful attention.
Rejecting the use of such emblems is not about political correctness but about historical memory. In a country where survivors of Terezín and Lety are still alive, their public display is offensive to the victims of Nazism and a warning sign about the trivialization of the totalitarian past.
From online extremism to the European Parliament
What once seemed unthinkable has already happened: in March 2025, Filip Turek spoke before the European Parliament in Strasbourg as an elected MEP.
The same politician who once publicly downplayed an attempted murder of a Romani child stood at the podium where the Holocaust has so often been remembered.
The European Parliament archive (12 March 2025) shows him mid-speech, the Union’s blue flag behind him.
His address was part of the debate titled “Action Plan for the Automotive Industry”, a European action plan on the green transition of the automotive sector.
Turek is not an expert on industry, energy or the environment. His career has been tied to automotive marketing and event organization, not to public policy.
During that session, far from offering technical proposals, he used the tribune to criticize the EU’s climate policy, calling it a “green ideology” and a “threat to citizens’ freedom.”
It was not a technical intervention but a political performance —his first rehearsal of international visibility: gaining notoriety, projecting presence and preparing the ground for future political ascent.
If he were ever to become Foreign Minister, as several Czech analysts have predicted, he would no longer be a stranger in Strasbourg. He would be remembered as the deputy who defended the car industry and Czech sovereignty against Brussels —a far-right figure with institutional credentials.
Motorists for Themselves: the laboratory of resentment
In the 2025 parliamentary elections, Motoristé sobě obtained 7.4 percent of the vote and eleven seats.
Its base consists of truck drivers, small business owners and citizens frustrated with state bureaucracy.
Added to that electorate are ultranationalist groups that find in the Motorists a civilized disguise for their anger.
Their leader, Petr Macinka —former spokesman for ex-president Václav Klaus— combines economic libertarianism with moral conservatism. In his discourse, Europe is portrayed as a “green, globalist tyranny” oppressing the common citizen.
Deník N documented dozens of Turek’s posts ridiculing the Holocaust, attacking LGBTQ+ people and calling Barack Obama “a negro who, at best, can sell hashish at the station.”
When confronted, Turek replied that this was “a blatant attempt to discredit him,” boasting of having served as “ambassador of an association of Romani entrepreneurs.”
That association —the Západočeská asociace romských podnikatelů (ZARP)— was identified by Romea.cz as a group advised by Macinka himself. The supposed “anti-racist” gesture turned out to be another piece of political self-promotion.
The Romani endorsement and the legitimization of racism
The case of actor Zdeněk Godla, now a friendly face for those promoting an exclusionary discourse, deserves closer reading. Godla is Romani and has spoken publicly about discrimination, yet today he appears supporting a politician who trivialized the attempted murder of a child from his own community.
His gesture is not innocent. In a country where Romani representation remains rare, visibility can be mistaken for power. Perhaps Godla believes his presence within the coalition could help moderate positions or open dialogue.
In practice, however, such participation legitimizes those who have built their political discourse on contempt for his own people.
There is no neutrality when racism disguises itself as pragmatism. Every time a member of a minority is used to whitewash the image of a movement that has stigmatized it, the cost is borne by the entire community it represents.
The alliance that betrays its own
The calculation of Andrej Babiš (ANO) is simple: he needs the Motorists to form a majority. To achieve it, he accepts sharing power with sectors that have expressed disdain toward part of his own Romani electorate.
Thousands of voters who once trusted him out of pragmatism —not ideology— now feel betrayed seeing him partner with those who downplay or minimize hate crimes like the one in Vítkov.
From Havel’s legacy to the echo of totalitarianism
The contrast is stark. The country of Václav Havel, a symbol of democratic conscience, is allowing his legacy to be replaced by authoritarian nostalgia.
While hate gains microphones and seats, many foreign influencers and digital nomads living in Czechia prefer silence. They post about how “magical” and “safe” Prague is, yet omit any mention of hate crimes, the neo-Nazis multiplying like mushrooms, and the rise of extremist parties that despise even the same foreigners who praise them.
The Overton window is already open
In almost any country in the world, proposing or applauding a politician who has publicly praised figures of fascism would be a scandal.
In today’s Czechia, it barely causes surprise.
That, precisely, is what it means to open the Overton window: when horror becomes part of the landscape.
Sources
– Deník N, 10 October 2025
– Romea.cz, 2025
– Wikipedia – Filip Turek (racing driver)
– European Parliament, 12 March 2025 – debate “Action Plan for the Automotive Industry”