BRATISLAVA, September 3, (WEBNOVINY) — The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is preparing for spending cuts. When this year’s state budget was prepared, the ministry was one of the departments whose budget had been slashed most. In an interview with SITA news agency, Foreign Affairs Minister Mikulas Dzurinda did not say whether his department again be forced save the most if the state budget for this year is reopened. „Just as to any other department, if the Ministry of Finance raises the requirement to reduce costs, my department will behave like any other department,“ he said. Exactly where he would cut spending, he did not say. „That is exactly what I cannot talk about now. That can be the last, not first question,“ he said.
The number of employees of the Foreign Affairs Ministry can temporarily increase, but layoffs will follow. „In the first step, commercial attaches will be taken on, therefore there will possibly be short-term increase in employees, but it is our task, just like any other department, to contemplate whether there has to be just as many employees. And I think you know the answer in advance. We will be fewer of us,“ he said. However, this will not be some „administrative or somehow charlatan layoffs, but a competent process, so that I could stand by the final decision. There will be fewer people at the department, but quality of work and professionalism has improve, not deteriorate,“ he explained.
SITA