BRATISLAVA, October 22, (WEBNOVINY) – SMER-SD supports the draft bill on budgetary responsibility and is ready to limit the maximum debt of the Slovak Republic to 60 percent of GDP, party leader Robert Fico declared in Saturday Dialogues on air of the Slovak Radio. “We will emphasize the protection function of the government and the social dialogue a great deal and we want big public investments to bolster economic growth,” Fico outlined his concept of the future government. He underlined that anyone who would be in the government would have to open “the matter of the rate of reallocation.” “The state cannot function in a way that someone keeps saying – reduce taxes, reduce insurance premiums. OK, we can reduce taxes to 15 percent, contributions to zero but then people will pay for everything, from doctors, schools … they cannot expect any services from the state,” he elaborated. SMER-SD has been frankly saying that those who have more have to pay more. “Banks, monopolies, the wealthy, dividends” have to contribute more to the common treasury, Fico argued. His party is ready to help form a stable, socially-oriented Cabinet that will support economy. The present draft of state budget is, in Fico’s words, just a summary of unrealistic figures submitted by Ivan Miklos and “he knows it very well.” The opposition leader thinks that the Cabinet built the budget on the assumption that the GDP growth in 2012 will reach 3.4 percent but, in reality, it will be only 1-1.5 percent. The material tabled by Miklos is a fiction, according to Fico.
Chairman of the Christian-Democratic Movement (KDH) Jan Figel confirmed that the coalition attained a basic agreement to revise and support the budget they had prepared. Figel pointed out that Slovakia is bound to the surrounding EU internal market to 80 percent. Figel admitted that some corrective measures would have to be sought, when asked whether the coalition agreed upon the initial Cabinet-approved budget or would have to seek additional funds. Outlooks deteriorate and some matters in the budget will be adjusted already now. Budgetary measures will be passed in the course of the year to respond to actual situation. “Slovakia needs consolidation and frugality in consumption but also development,” Figel concluded.