BRATISLAVA, February 27, (WEBNOVINY)- The ruling coalition will strive to find a compromise on the dual citizenship issue on Monday however it seems for now that the agreement is out of sight. “I do not expect that we might come to an agreement. Given the conditions of Igor Matovic it is impossible to comply with MOST-HID’s visions and thus the current wording of the law is likely to remain in effect,” said KDH MP Pavol Abrhan. Independent deputy Igor Matovic told SITA that a citizen who accepts citizenship of another country is disloyal towards Slovakia and should lose his/her Slovak citizenship.
Head of the MOST-HID deputy club Laszlo Solymos did not want to say whether his party would insist that Slovak citizens who obtain another country’s passport should to lose the Slovak one at any circumstances. “For us, the priority is that a citizen is not lost in principles” he told SITA. Also his party mate Gabor Gal holds a similar opinion when he told the newswire that he does not consider it a good solution that Slovak citizens lose their citizenship against their will.
Though, Slovak Prime Minister Iveta Radicova proposed to resolve the dispute between Bratislava and Budapest by adopting a bilateral treaty, the Hungarian side has already let her know that it will not sign the treaty until Slovakia adjusts its current citizenship law.
Slovakia’s coalition however failed to push through its amendment to the state citizenship law, which was to fix the current legislation adopted in the era of Robert Fico, under which Slovak citizens, who obtain a passport of another country, will lose their Slovak citizenship. Fico’s “anti-law” was adopted in response to Hungary’s dual citizenship, which deprives of Slovak citizenship anyone who decides to accept citizenship of another country. However, when the parliament dealt with it earlier in February, it failed to go through. The opposition SMER-SD sent its own amendment to soften the law to parliament. According to it, people who received citizenship of another country would not lose the Slovak passport if their registered stay in another country lasted for at least twelve months. Only opposition deputies assisted by Prochazka and Matovic, backed this amendment so it was turned down. Matovic was expelled from the SaS deputy club for having allied with the opposition. After the coalition withdrew its amendments from parliament and SMER-SD’s draft wrecked leaders of the ruling quartet agreed that the Cabinet will send a new proposal to parliament, after the coalition agrees on a compromising draft.
SITA