BRATISLAVA, September 20, (WEBNOVINY) — Finance Minister and Deputy Chairman of the largest ruling coalition party SDKU-DS, Ivan Miklos stirred the political scene on Tuesday by telling journalists that Prime Minister Iveta Radicova has informed her coalition partners that the vote on the extension of the EFSF will be merged with a confidence vote in the government. This decision came after the SaS rejected a compromise solution at the last week’s Coalition Council, he said. Miklos added that the prime minister presented the position of the entire party, agreed upon by its representatives.
“After this offer has been turned down, Prime Minister Iveta Radicova informed that in this case she would link the [bailout] to the confidence vote in the government. This is reality,” Miklos told reporters on Tuesday. He was unable to say whether her position has changed since then. According to Miklos, representatives of other coalition parties that were present at the talks can confirm her statement. Prime minister Iveta Radicova has left on Monday for a week-long visit to the United States. .
The head of the parliamentary caucus of the junior coalition party SaS, Jozef Kollar rushed to react to Miklos’s statements. He said he rejects individual interpretations of the conclusions of the Coalition Council by its participants. “When somebody interprets conclusions of the Coalition Council, he should stick to the official stance of Prime Minister Iveta Radicova she made after the end of the discussions at a news conference,” Kollar told SITA specifying that no remark was dropped at the Coalition Council’s ground on the possible merger of a bailout vote with a confidence vote. “All coalition partners should abide by this. It is not responsible when everybody comes up with their own interpretation,” underscored Kollar. SaS leader Richard Sulik considers such merger an attack on Prime Minister Iveta Radicova. Sulik cannot imagine that Radicova would support the merged vote as she is a woman for whom decency is the life principle and therefore he cannot imagine that the prime minister would contribute to the comeback of the former government of Robert Fico.
Following the meeting of all coalition deputies and Cabinet members at the beginning of last week, Prime Minister Iveta Radicova told journalists that Slovakia’s credibility in the eyes of its partners in the EU and the eurozone is very important. Radicova confirmed that connecting the vote on the bailout fund with a motion of confidence in the government was discussed, too. She stressed that she does not want to take responsibility for political instability.
SITA