Czechia’s new interim environment minister, Petr Macinka, scrapped the ministry’s climate protection section on Thursday, saying the department needs to be “de-ideologized.”

Macinka had promised ahead of the country’s Oct. 3-4 election that “green blood will run,” and on taking office Monday announced that “the climate crisis is over today.”

“In the new staffing structure of the Ministry of the Environment that we are preparing for January 1, 2026, the climate protection section is no longer included,” Macinka wrote on social media Thursday evening.

Macinka is the leader of the right-wing Motorists for Themselves party, which is part of the country’s ruling coalition under new Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš. He leads the environment ministry temporarily after the party’s original nominee, Filip Turek, was hospitalized with a herniated disc.

Turek had faced criticism from President Petr Pavel over past racist, homophobic and extremist social media posts, and has yet to secure a meeting with Pavel to clear the way for his appointment.

Babiš’ new government includes his own populist ANO party, the anti-EU, anti-green Motorists and the far-right Freedom and Direct Democracy. Under its new PM Czechia has quickly joined arms with regional neighbors Slovakia and Hungary in rejecting aid for Ukraine, and like Bratislava and Budapest now also opposes the bloc’s ETS2 emissions allowances and other climate measures.

Macinka will run the environment ministry on an interim basis until Pavel approves Turek or appoints another candidate. He is also Czechia’s foreign minister in the new government, and accompanied Babiš to Brussels on Wednesday for the European Council summit while separately attending a meeting of the far-right Patriots for Europe group.

Outgoing Environment Minister Petr Hladík described his successor’s actions as “populist and driven by a fossil fuel ideology.”

“If experts are dismissed from the ministry, I honestly don’t know who will represent Czechia in international and European negotiations, who will negotiate on Czechia’s behalf on issues that form a broad agenda in the EU, or who will draft expert positions, legislation, and implementing decrees,” Hladík told Czech media.