BRATISLAVA, September 23, (WEBNOVINY) — With regard to the current knowledge of the state of affairs, the SaS party will not support the eurozone bailout fund even if with the compromise solution proposed by Finance Minister Ivan Miklos or Ondrej Matej, stated head of SaS deputy caucus Jozef Kollar. He further told SITA that those politicians who present themselves as politicians with twenty years of experience in the field should know that this form of communication including brutal blackmailing in the form of connecting the vote on the bailout fund with a confidence vote in the government will block the way to any consensus. „Such an important topic should not be a race for who offered what to whom, what compromise, and who refused what,” stated Kollar.
The ruling coalition member SDKU-DS is offering a solution to the stalemate connected with support to the eurozone bailout fund, which the SaS party rejects. According to a member of SDKU-DS presidium and deputy chairman of the Parliamentary Finance Committee Ondrej Matej, the solution should comprise an agreement of the entire coalition to support the bailout fund as a system, but the coalition would again decide about concrete assistance to a particular country, while each party would have the right of veto. “This is a solution for the coalition to go on and fulfill its commitment to voters, which all four parties gave to its supporters. After fourteen months, we have started to achieve something. Reform laws are starting to bring results. I would be sorry if we had to end governing due to a failure to agree as well as approve the solution offered by SDKU-DS. We will patiently negotiate until the last moment so that we ratify the eurozone bailout fund under these conditions,” Matej told SITA news agency on Friday.
Matej explained that supporting the bailout fund as a mechanism is similar to provision of mortgages. “The bank’s board approves the procedure for mortgage provision, after which the management discusses concrete conditions for the loan. This is what our proposal encompasses, so that not the finance minister decides about a loan, but coalition parties with the right of vote,” Matej said, adding that if Greece asked now for more funds from the bailout fund, Slovakia would say no. On the contrary, we lent money to Ireland and the country is gradually overcoming problems.
Matej is calling on the coalition and in particular on the SaS party to return to the SDKU-DS offer. “By its approval we will avoid making Slovakia the black sheep and facing isolation,” he stated. If the opposition SMER-SD joins the offer, individual loans could be subject to approval by the parliament, instead of ruling coalition members.
According to Matej, the aim of the bailout fund is not just to resolve the debt crisis, but primarily its approval is a signal to economies such as the U.S.A., China, India, Japan that the euro is a strong currency that no speculators will shake. “We will show that the eurozone can manage if its gets into problems,” he added. Matej concluded by saying that the bailout fund is not about Greece, like the SaS says. “The loan was about Greece, which we did not give and will not,” he stated.
According to KDH leader Jan Figel, support for the eurozone bailout fund with the condition that the coalition would again decide about a concrete assistance to a particular country, while each party would have the right of veto is a correct expression of support for the mechanism. „It means not blocking, but resolving the bailout fund as such, but on the other hand there is concrete decision-making on the use of this mechanism,” Figel told SITA news agency. He added that how the coalition’s influence on the government’s decisions on behalf of Slovakia should be secured is a subject of discussion. “It is a correct proposal that I consider to be a sensible compromise with regard to the current situation,” the KDH leader commented. According to him, decision-making mechanisms of a country is its sovereign matter. “On the whole, it is important that we are able to define common mechanisms and administer them. The eurozone bailout fund has been defined. The distribution of shares cannot be changed, but how and who decides on the national level, is a matter of individual countries. No one will interfere in that,” Figel stressed.
SITA