BRATISLAVA, February 10, (WEBNOVINY) – Deputy drafts which were to fix the state citizenship act approved by the previous government and which Parliament failed to pass on Thursday, will be submitted to Parliament by the Cabinet in a regular legislative process. Prime Minister Iveta Radicova informed after the meeting of the Coalition Council that it is the proposal of MOST-HID while coalition leaders have accepted it. “The basic question is, whether we can prepare a law that reacts to a law adopted in another country. It has to be a compromise, no doubt about that,” stated the prime minister. Radicova opines that the only reasonable solution is to adopt a standard bilateral agreement with Hungary and said she work on it even harder. “So that we avoid resolving unsolvable situations,” she underscored. According to the prime minister, deputy factions are now discussing how to guarantee support of their deputies to future government drafts.
Parliament did not pass any of the amendments to the state citizenship law on Thursday due to resistance of head of the Ordinary People faction in the SaS caucus, Igor Matovic and KDH deputy Radoslav Prochazka. Both lawmakers together with the opposition pushed for an amending proposal that would change the coalition amendment and enable to take away Slovak citizenship from people who gained Hungarian citizenship in line with the controversial law adopted by Budapest parliament. Eventually, Matovic and Prochazka voted together with the opposition SMER-SD for their proposal. In reaction, the SaS party expelled Matovic from its deputy caucus.
The coalition wanted to drop from the current citizenship law the stipulation based on which citizens who gain a citizenship of a different country lose their Slovak passport, and replace it with a stipulation that Slovakia does not recognize gaining a citizenship of a different state if it is in contradiction with the international law.
SITA