An opposition call for a report from the environment minister on how his department conducted its apparently low-priced sale of greenhouse-gas emissions quotas was debated in Parliament on Wednesday, June 24.
Also up for discussion was a demand for a report from the Interior and Foreign Affairs Ministries on the conduct of Chinese embassies in and around Slovakia during a visit to Slovakia by Chinese President Hu Jintao last week which attracted public demonstrations.
The opposition parties’ proposal for Environment Minister Viliam Turský to produce a report detailing the much-criticised sale of quotas last year to an obscure US-based company, Interblue Group, fell short of being approved by only one vote. Seventy lawmakers backed the measure, among them several MPs from the Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (HZDS), which is one of the ruling coalition parties.
Legislators also voted down a proposal by Conservative Democrats of Slovakia (KDS) MP Vladimír Palko for Interior Minister Robert Kaliňák and Foreign Affairs Minister Miroslav Lajčák to give an account of the involvement of staff from Chinese embassies in Slovakia and neighbouring countries in scuffles in front of the Presidential Palace in Bratislava during the Chinese president’s visit, the TASR newswire wrote.
Palko told lawmakers that the Interior Ministry had earlier in the week admitted the involvement of workers from Chinese embassies in the disturbances, although the Chinese Embassy in Slovakia denies that any of its staff took part. The independent MP said that it was therefore necessary to tell the whole truth about what he called organised assaults on Slovak citizens by the operatives of a foreign power. TASR
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
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