BRATISLAVA, January 3, (WEBNOVINY) — Slovakia should return to a healthy regulatory policy, demanded the opposition SMER-SD leader Robert Fico at a news conference on Tuesday. Fico blames the price growth in Slovakia last year also on the failure of the government of Iveta Radicova in the regulatory policy. If his party succeeds in the early parliamentary elections in March, Robert Fico pledged to bring back to life the law that will enable to submit price hike proposals to [energy] companies‘ general shareholder meetings and not to their boards of directors. Fico insists that currently the state has no chance to control whether the price proposal will be filed or not.
The second step SMER-SD wants to take if it succeeds in March is to return the Economy Ministry in the energy price regulation procedure. Another measure would be the establishment of an analytical department within the ministry that would monitor the market development and the relation between the regulator and monopolies.
SMER-SD also wantS to return the law on retail chains that should regulate what the party calls „inappropriate conditions in business relations“. “We will return again to the law that will regulate the behavior of retail chains,“ announced Fico. The party wants to analyze as well the possibility of reintroducing a reduced, 6-percent VAT rate on the direct sale of produce from farms.
Fico ascribed the above-average price growth last year also to measures in the government’s tax policy. According to the party, the current government contributed to it with interim increase of VAT as of the beginning of 2011 to 20 percent and with hiking excise taxes as well. „In Slovakia, prices grow the fastest in the whole European Union, the whole eurozone,“ stated Fico.
Annual inflation in Slovakia measured by the European Union’s harmonized index of consumer prices (HICP) was higher than the eurozone’s and EU’s average in November. In the eurozone prices went up 3 percent compared with the same month of last year and by 3.4 percent within the EU27. The growth in Slovakia was 4.8 percent. This year, consumer prices should grow at a more moderate pace in Slovakia without the influence of VAT increase on the annualized inflation and also due to the expected slower economic growth that should slow growth of prices.
SITA