BRATISLAVA, October 6, (WEBNOVINY) — The extension of the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) will be the first point on the agenda of the 24th parliamentary session convened for October 11 by Speaker of Parliament Richard Sulik (SaS). Most MPs declare support to the bailout fund but the result of the vote on it ratification remains highly uncertain. The neoliberal member of the ruling coalition SaS has been refusing to vote for increasing Slovak guarantees while the opposition SMER with 62 votes which says it supports the changes to the EFSF will not vote for them either. It says that the ruling coalition first has to secure the necessary majority for passing the EU rescue fund. The coalition continues negotiating about possible solutions but Sulik insists that no suitable compromise is at sight yet.
The outcome of the dispute over the bailout fund that threatens to split the ruling coalition will influence the rest of the parliamentary session. Politicians of the two other ruling coalition parties, KDH and MOST-HID, have already said that if the coalition does not unite in the vote on the bailout fund, its further existence will be problematic. Due to uncertainty surrounding the fate of the coalition, SaS MP Kamil Krnac has been waiting to be appointed as the new head of the National Security Office already since early September. His election is on the agenda of the upcoming session. The coalition should also decide on the fate of dozens of deputy drafts that were rescheduled for later from July and then also from September.
The agenda of the session also includes the second reading of the tax-levy reform that is to increase tax revenue and payroll levies paid by self-proprietors and contract agents. MPs for the ruling coalition has not still struck accord over the reform, which is opposed mainly by the quartet of OKS MPs working in the MOST-HID deputy club. In his draft amendment to the Act on Radio and Television of Slovakia (RTVS) that is on the agenda as well Culture Minister Daniel Krajcer (SaS) wants to scrap concessionaire fees; however some coalition MPs slam him for proposing a pay hike to RTVS director general from four-fold of the average wage to sevenfold.
One of the controversial bills on the agenda of the upcoming parliamentary session is an amendment to the State Citizenship Act. It offers a solution to the situation when a citizen of Slovakia automatically loses his/her Slovak citizenship after being granted another country’s citizenship based on his free will. The ruling coalition inherited this law from the Robert Fico government. The draft with the ambition to correct the law from the previous era limits the loss of Slovak citizenship through becoming a citizen of another country to cases when the other state’s citizenship was acquired by an applicant without any registered form of residence in the respective country. The MOST-HID however does not like the bill saying it is not a solution to the situation but only a facelift while Slovak citizens will continue losing their citizenship against their will if they gain citizenship of another country.
SITA