Robert Fico and his fellow coalition leaders Matúš Šutaj Eštok and Andrej Danko announce the measures to consolidate public finances. (source: TASR)
Welcome to your weekly commentary and overview of news from Slovakia. Fico announces a major tax hike. The announcement came simultaneously with a vote to oust the opposition leader as deputy speaker.
If you have a suggestion on how to make this overview better, let me know at michaela.terenzani@spectator.sk.
Tax hikes will be hard to swallow for Smer voters
Never before has any government of Robert Fico raised value added tax (known as DPH in Slovakia). Never before has any government removed an opposition politician from the post of deputy speaker of parliament – a role that has always, by convention, been assigned to the opposition. After a convention-trashing year in which the criminal law, the prosecution service and the judiciary have witnessed major interventions that all directly benefit members and allies of the coalition parties, the latest moves in parliament and on taxation mark an even more unprecedented turn.
On Tuesday, parliament held a secret vote to dismiss Progressive Slovakia (PS) leader Michal Šimečka from the post of the deputy speaker of parliament. It was a first: even the authoritarian-leaning governments of Vladimír Mečiar in the 1990s, which frequently engaged in bare-knuckle tactics with opponents, respected the convention that one of parliament’s deputy speaker posts should be reserved for the opposition to fill at its own discretion.
The move against the opposition leader – viewed as wilful by critics of the ruling coalition and watchdogs of political fairness and transparency – prompted Šimečka to display a previously unseen political – and sarcastic – edge. “Mr Fico, you can dismiss the deputy speaker of parliament, but you cannot dismiss the opposition leader. I am looking forward to defeating you in the election. Now I have several more hours a day to do that,” he retorted.
