Stanislav Gross

Stanislav Gross (Prague, October 30, 1969-ibid., April 16, 2015) was a Czech lawyer and politician, Minister of the Interior and Prime Minister of his country who resigned from his charge on April 25, 2005, discredited by an alleged political corruption scandal.

Biography

At the age of twenty, Gross was working as a train engineer. Later he married Sarka Grossova with whom he had two children. He met his wife at the Parliament restaurant, where she worked as a waitress.

Political career

After the fall of the communist regime in 1989, Gross joined the Czech Social Democratic Party (CSSD) and in 1992 he was elected to parliament, and at the age of 30, Minister of the Interior.

Prime Minister

Stanislav Gross was appointed Prime Minister of the Czech Republic a month after his predecessor, Vladimir Špidla, resigned after the Social Democratic Party's failure in the 2004 European Parliament elections. His government consisted of three parties in a government coalition, that is, the Social Democracy, the Christian Democratic Popular Party and the Freedom Union.

During a visit to Prague in 2004, German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder met with Gross, and he refused to back claims for compensation by Germans expelled from the Sudetenland and other territories in 1945.

European Union

In 2004, at the age of 34, Gross became the youngest member in the history of the European Council up to that time. In 2019, Sanna Marin was designated as Prime Minister of Finland with which she joined the Council at the same age as Gross.

During his tenure, Gross proposed holding the referendum on the European Constitution in conjunction with the 2006 Czech Republic general elections.

He defined himself as a Europeanist, who supported Turkey's accession to the European Union (EU).

Resignation

The crisis arose from the scandal caused by Gross's inability to explain the origin of the 900,000 crowns (about €30,000) with which he bought a luxury apartment. This together with the alleged business relations of his wife Sarka, with organized crime in Prague and an anonymous complaint for tax fraud, led the Christian Democrat leader Miroslav Kalusek in mid-February to demand Gross's resignation.

A few hours after Gross handed in his resignation, Czech President Václav Klaus appointed Jiri Paroubek, a 52-year-old economist and until then Minister of Regional Development, the new prime minister.

Death

An official spokesman for the Czech Republic said Gross suffered from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a neurological disease that causes loss of muscle function. In 2014, in an interview for Czech Television, already knowing the unstoppable evolution of his disease, Gross apologized and regretted having disappointed those who trusted him.Finally, the disease ended his life on April 16 of 2015.