BRATISLAVA, September 21, (WEBNOVINY) — The Coalition Council is meeting on Tuesday afternoon at the headquarters of the KDH party in Bratislava. The members of the center-right coalition are to discuss the initial draft state budget for 2011, in addition to other issues they currently deem important . “We have quite an important topic, the budget, but we will open other matters, which have been making a stir for at least two weeks, too. We are going to debate,” said MOST-HID chairman Bela Bugar before the session. He does not object to the fact that SaS leader Richard Sulik will not be present at the meeting, as he is currently abroad. “As long as people for the SaS have the powers to take decisions, no problem”, he stated.
The coalition will devote attention to the draft amendment to the State Language Act, prepared by Culture Minister Daniel Krajcer (SaS). MOST-HID objects to the fact that it does not entirely omit financial penalties for violations of the law. “The government program statements says that all restrictive measures will be eliminated. In my opinion, fines are a restrictive measure and the previous government approved them,” emphasized Bugar. The new wording of the draft states that fines for violations of the law are understood only as a last resort in extreme situations. Furthermore, they are optional, i.e., the department can decide whether it would issue a fine or not.
Another topic will be state contracts of a company formerly owned by state secretaries Martin Chren (SaS) and Ivan Svejna (MOST-HID). Both have been criticized by Prime Minister Iveta Radicova for conflict of interests for a tender of their former company Hayek Consulting, which won a state contract at the time when its former co-owners held the posts of state secretaries at the Economy and Transport Ministries. Leaders of the parties that nominated them to the posts, Richard Sulik for the SaS and Bela Bugar for MOST-HID have stood behind them. “We have nothing to defend him for. He has done nothing that requires us to do so,” said Bugar in connection with Ivan Svejna. According to Krajcer for the SaS, none of them violated the law.
The Coalition Council is expected to make a decision on a 10-percent reduction of salaries of MPs and other constitutional representatives on Tuesday. Last week, Prime Minister Iveta Radicova said that a compromise was achieved in the coalition. The Finance Ministry had been asked to prepare a calculation of the potential decrease in salaries paid to various categories of constitutional officials by Tuesday. “We have prepared two proposals. I can assure you that both of them will lead to at least a ten-percent lowering of salaries,” said the prime minister following the previous Coalition Council meeting.
SITA