THE OPPOSITION has withdrawn its representative Vladimír Tvaroška from the Council for the Economic Crisis because it says parliament and the council have been constantly disregarding or rejecting the opposition’s proposals aimed at eliminating impacts of the crisis, the SITA newswire reported.
Leaders of the three parliamentary opposition parties, the Slovak Christian and Democratic Union (SDKÚ), the Hungarian Coalition Party (SMK) and the Christian Democratic Movement (KDH) presented their decision at a press conference on April 24. SDKÚ leader Mikuláš Dzurinda announced that the parties would no longer tolerate ‘ignorance’ from the ruling coalition, SITA wrote.
In a letter explaining his reasons for leaving the council, Tvaroška called it a smoke-screen to hide the government’s helplessness towards the current problems in Slovakia’s economy. Tvaroška said he believes the council is currently useless. He also wrote that he was glad to end his service in the council as he no longer believed that the council was able to properly prepare Slovakia for the future. According to Tvaroška, three of the four past council sessions were dedicated exclusively to the car-scrapping subsidy to boost the automotive industry while no time was spent on issues of social security and health insurance transfers, SITA reported, based on Tvaroška’s letter.
The leaders of the three opposition parties announced they will not remain passive, saying that they intend to continue submitting drafts to alleviate the impact of the crisis in Slovakia. Their plans include a roundtable that would gather the best independent economic experts, SITA reported Dzurinda as saying. The event would take place in early May and experts currently involved in the work of the Council for the Economic Crisis can participate in the meeting but there should be no lobbyists, SITA wrote.
Prime Minister Robert Fico described the opposition’s withdrawal of Tvaroška from the council as more politicking and a refusal to cooperate amidst the ongoing economic crisis.
“They want to take advantage of the economic crisis to make political points in the run-up to next year’s election,” he said, as quoted by the TASR newswire.
Author: Compiledby Spectator staff from press reports
