BRATISLAVA, August 23, (WEBNOVINY) — Jan Figel, leader of the ruling coalition member the KDH party, has turned down an invitation from the chairman of the strongest opposition party SMER-SD Robert Fico to a roundtable of political leaders on the eurozone bailout fund. KDH spokesman Matej Kovac said that the KDH boss is prepared to seek a suitable solution within the ruling coalition and all parliamentary parties. “The KDH regards the euro stability and trustworthiness to be an issue of not only national, state, political, financial and economic interests but also a precondition of competitiveness and functioning of the single European market,” Kovac cited Figel as saying.
Figel thinks that the president should host the meeting of chairmen of parliamentary political parties in the presence of the prime minister. He thinks that from the political viewpoint this space is neutral and authoritative enough for such top-level meeting. Figel expects that the head of state will initiate such talks shortly.
The strongest coalition member the SDKU-DS of Mikulas Dzurinda has asked Fico to postpone the bailout fund talks until the ruling coalition agrees on a joint procedure. Dzurinda is willing as well to take part in a joint meeting of political leaders hosted by President Ivan Gasparovic. “Invitations from Mr. President are not rejected,” he added.
The coalition SaS and the opposition SNS refuse to vote for the extension of the European Financial Stability Facility and the creation of a permanent bailout fund to replace the EFSF. Due to lacking SaS votes the coalition does not have the necessary simple majority in parliament to approve the EFSF extension and the creation of a new, permanent stabilization mechanism and needs SMER-SD support. The party of Robert Fico however does not want to vote for the extension of the temporary bailout fund until the coalition is able to guarantee all of its 79 votes. Fico is discontent with how Prime Minister Iveta Radicova manages the situation and thus he initiated a meeting of chairmen of political parties. The SaS rushed to say it would not accept such offer.
Slovaks would like it more if President Ivan Gasparovic and not SMER-SD leader Robert Fico hosted political talks about the bailout fund, according to last week’s phone survey conducted by POLIS Slovakia in cooperation with SITA on a sample of 915 respondents older than 18 years of age. As many as 53.9 percent of respondents definitively or somewhat support the proposal that the president organize and lead bailout fund talks, while 26.8 percent of those polled hold the opposite opinion. The remaining respondents were not able to answer the question. The survey also shows that the president is a more suitable person to anchor talks on euro-zone stabilization mechanisms than Fico. According to the survey, 54.8 percent of those polled would be happier to see the head of state as a moderator of such talks, while the SMER-SD leader who has already initiated these talks is more acceptable to 26.1 percent of those polled.
SITA