BRATISLAVA, November 28, (WEBNOVINY) — Entrepreneurs are urging parliament to pass measures that would improve the business environment. “Slovakia is facing a new wave of a crisis. It is therefore necessary to intensify adoption of measures that would lead to improvement of the business environment. In spite of the shortened mandate of the incumbent government, lawmakers should approach responsibly the legislation currently on the agenda of the parliamentary session,” Vice-President of the National Association of Employers (RUZ), Jozef Spirko, told reporters on Monday.
Employers clustered in the association are struggling particularly with laws on energy efficiency and accounting, constitutional draft bill on budgetary responsibility and the public procurement act. They complain that the energy-efficiency norm, obliging power consumers in industry and agriculture to have an energy audit carried out to assess energy consumption in production, is useless. “We demand that its coming into force be postponed by two years; let us have a rational debate whether we need such a law. We, entrepreneurs, say we do not need such a law,” he noted. Spirko added that the previous government elaborated the law under pressure of lobbyist groups.
Also, employers want to harmonize limits of audit-related duties stipulated in the accounting law with the requirements of the EU. The limits set by law of EUR 1 million in company assets, EUR 2 million in turnover and more than 30 employees go profoundly beyond the EU demands. Spirko is asking what this useless bureaucracy and financial burden on businesses is good for. The total value of assets should be set at EUR 4.4 million, net turnover at EUR 8.8 million and average number of staff per accounting period at 50.
The association has hailed the agreement of political parties on the draft constitutional bill on budgetary responsibility. Spirko suggests that MPs tighten the limits for public funds even more, by introducing caps on expenditures for instance. Last but not least, entrepreneurs would be happy to see changes to the public procurement act. Procurers should be obliged to post the terms of procurement on the Internet at the moment of its announcement. Useless formal and technical conditions that have no impact on quality and functionality of the subject-matter of the public procurement should be eliminated.
SITA