Prime Minister Robert Fico will propose that the opposition parties nominate one expert for the Government Council for the Economic Crisis, he said on January 26 in Bratislava. Fico spoke after the SDKÚ-DS and Christian Democrats (KDH) parties earlier in the day declared their willingness to work with the government on steps designed to counter the adverse effects of the global economic crisis, the TASR newswire wrote.
SDKÚ-DS chief Mikuláš Dzurinda stressed the importance of reduced government spending as one anti-crisis measure. Slovakia, he believes, could, for example, save more than €332 million by not allocating planned funds for the repairs of Bratislava Castle and exercising some austerity on the electronic toll system for Slovak highways.
Fico rejected the latter proposal, saying that the electronic toll system will be fully financed by a foreign investor in 2009 and 2010 before Slovakia will begin to pay the investor from collected tolls beginning in 2011. The same principle holds true for the repairs to Bratislava castle, he said. TASR
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
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