Prime Minister Robert Fico said on Wednesday, May 27, that he doesn’t view the Sme daily's reports, carried in that day’s edition, as proof that Slovakia sold its excess national emissions quotas at a very unfavourable price last year.
“A piece of information in Sme daily, of all things, is supposed to be treated as some kind of evidence? You can’t possibly mean it ... In no way will I take account of what some journalists write in Sme daily,” Fico told reporters.
According to the daily, at approximately the same time that Slovakia sold its emissions quotas at a price of €4.99 per tonne, neighbouring Hungary sold its quotas for no less than €12. “I can say that when I was at talks we didn't even touch on anything less than €12 per tonne," Jozsef Feiler, who has led negotiations for the Hungarian Environment Ministry since October last year, told the daily.
The opposition parties and the media have accused the Slovak government of organising an unfavourable and opaque sale of emissions quotas. They also question the wisdom of selling quotas to an obscure firm acting as a middleman - the Interblue Group - instead of selling directly to foreign governments, as did the Czech Republic and Hungary. Opposition lawmakers are preparing to carry out an inspection at the Environment Ministry on Friday.
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
The Slovak Spectator cannot vouch for the accuracy of the information presented in its Flash News postings.
