Disunity of fiscal and monetary policy hurts Slovakia

"The poor coordination of fiscal and monetary policies is the main drawback of the current monetary policy of the National Bank of Slovakia (NBS)," said Bernard Naudts of the European Commission's General Directorate for Economic and Financial Affairs. The unfavourable situation in the banking sector is also a serious problem, according to Naudts. "The big and most important banks are still under state ownership and have troubles with bad debts. These force them to increase interest rates if they want to stay profitable, and this hampers the NBS in carrying out its monetary policy," said Naudts.