SNS plans to put pressure on Dolinková. The reason, according to SNS leader Andrej Danek, is that the health sector has become a lion’s den in which billions are disappearing.
Money is disappearing in the Dolinka resort
The package of consolidation measures was meant to ease relations between the coalition leaders. However, Andrej Danek’s party attacked Hlasa politicians again the day after his announcement. The leader of the SNS called a press conference, during which he harshly criticized the vice president of Hlasa and the Minister of Health, Zuzana Dolinková. SNS MP Rudolf Huliak stated that the Ministry of Health has unpaid invoices for a billion euros. According to him, the European Union (EU) should therefore impose an “infringement of 50,000 per day” on Slovakia. It alludes to the investigations that the European Commission (EC) started in March 2016 based on a complaint. EC turned to the Court of Justice due to significant delays of public hospitals with payments to their suppliers.
However, it is not just a two and a half year old matter, as Huliak stressed. The dispute has been going on since 2015, that is, when the second single-color government of Prime Minister Robert Fico (Smer) was in power. “Infringement in this matter is already ongoing and it all ended up in court,” Ingrid Ludviková, head of the press team of the EC Representation in Slovakia, told Pravda. On September 19, the Court of Justice of the EU in Luxembourg decided that the Slovak Republic is obliged to pay the costs of the proceedings, while no fine has yet been imposed.
“Now we will also put pressure on Minister Dolinková to take responsibility and name the person responsible for unpaid invoices two and a half years past due,” added Huliak. Danko reminded that in his departments of the SNS, he responsibly supervises where the money goes and criminal reports are filed. “Mrs. Dolinková has to take over very quickly, because during Drucker’s time the budget was four billion and today nine billion is not enough, and tell me if you are more satisfied with the hospitals, if you see a better quality of health care, if you see the construction of hospitals,” said Danko.
“The health sector has become a lion’s den. If someone does not come to the health department, it can drag the Slovak economy under water,” he said. The high budget for the department was also criticized by the Minister of the Environment Tomáš Taraba (nom. SNS). “We need to hear from colleagues from Hlas, how to proceed with this department, because the health sector is a difficult task. Money goes there, it gets lost, and it has no head or tail. I am not surprised by the residents’ reservations. I want to tell them that the state is pouring money into the healthcare sector, we just have to look at where it is being lost, Mrs. Dolinková has to roll up her sleeves for that,” he added.
In response to Pravda, Minister Dolinková stated that this is a problem that has not been systematically solved for a long time. “The new leadership of the Ministry of Health has been intensively negotiating with the departments of justice and finance regarding the solution to this issue since it took office, that is, since October of last year. At the next meeting of the government, we will present material that will be a comprehensive analysis and will also contain alternative proposals and measures to solve the situation,” she said. She did not respond to how she perceives SNS criticism.
The SNS did not go all the way
However, the continuing pressure on Hlas is not just a small “rebellion” of three Hlas deputies. The requirements of the SNS also suffered from the consolidation package. Danko gave up free highway stamps, MP Roman Michelko criticized the tax on books, and the coalition moved several controversial proposals from the SNS workshop, including the ban on the promotion of LGBTI+ and other ideologies in schools, which Education Minister Tomáš Drucker (Voice) disagrees with, to the October meeting.
“My topic is to cancel the highway known. I am convinced that it is total nonsense until the highways are built,” Danko responded. However, he added that he learned that the amount of the toll price is set by an EU directive. “This is new information to me,” he said.
Despite the criticism, he expressed clear support for the SNS club regarding the measures taken by the government. “Despite the fact that we have several reservations, we are united in the fact that we cannot afford a failure in the creation of the state budget or the breakdown of the government coalition, and we subordinate the main interest to this – the agreement on consolidation,” responded Danko, whose goal is to keep the price from rising next year energy for households, stabilization of mortgage prices or protection of gas prices.
In addition, they want to continue to push for an increase in the minimum pensions, which the SNS gave as a condition for supporting the law from the workshop of the Minister of Labor Erik Tomáš (Hlas), which is supposed to increase the minimum wage. By agreement, the coalition postponed both laws to the October meeting. In the SNS consolidation package, the increase in VAT from 10 to 23 percent also surprised the books. Michelko considers it an open matter for now.
At the same time, the member of the SNS is preparing documents so that the SNS will have arguments for the Minister of Finance Ladislav Kamenický (Smer) during the negotiations. “I realize that the benefits to the state budget and the negative impacts must be at some acceptable level, but I’m afraid that this would not be the case in this case. We will therefore look for a way to save the consolidation, but not to throw the baby out with the bathwater,” said Michelko. In the end, the Minister of Tourism and Sports, Dušan Keketi, also reconsidered the VAT increase for gastronomy, and we will have to pay extra for accommodation services instead.
Will SNS require the adjustment of other measures in addition to books? “You can’t blame it all. With the books, we talk about who the sufferer is,” said Danko. “Even with books, there are businessmen who control the market. We certainly have no desire to help oligarchs who make money from selling books,” he added.
‘Trucpodnik’ and political dances
Despite the fact that SNS guarantees the unity of the coalition, this obviously does not mean that it will stop having a problem with Hlas. “I perceive the statements of representatives of the SNS parliamentary club to the address of the Ministry of Health as a politically expedient communication conducted against the Hlas party. Andrej Danko decided to continue the confrontational line against Hlas, because he did not accept the fact that this party did not leave him the chair of the speaker of the parliament,” Miroslav Řádek, a political scientist from the Alexander Dubček University of Trenčia, assessed for Pravda.
“A lot of money goes into the healthcare sector, which is often lost there like water from a broken pipe,” said Michal Cirner, a political scientist from the University of Prešov, for Pravda. According to him, SNS rightly points out that it needs to be corrected. “The main intention of the SNS is that the diverted or saved money be transferred to the SNS portfolio, to their projects,” he thinks.
Dolinková, who was criticized by Danko, will again face the recall, but the coalition postponed it until the end of the current session. So far, the biggest problem has been the collapsing cardio center in Trenčín, which Dolinková rejects. However, it is unlikely that the SNS would support such an appeal. According to Řadek, this would be a violation of the coalition agreement. “I suppose the nationalists will be doing their ‘political dances’ at this point,” he says.
Cirner thinks that the SNS will continue its reservations about the voting ministers. “They wash their hands of the problems in health and education by criticizing the coalition partners. “Perhaps one or two members of the SNS will not vote for Dolinková, but they will do it so that she is not dismissed,” he said. Similar to the three members of Hlas who did not vote for the dismissal of Šimeček, but did not threaten the result.
According to the political scientist from Trenčín, however, the conflict in the coalition may come to a head during the votes in the parliament. “For example in the case of some draft laws or amendments from the Ministers of the Voice, SNS MPs will abstain or, in extreme cases, they will vote against. In that case, the coalition council will have to solve things,” he said. Cirner also foresees problems. “Consolidation will be unpopular and may cut the SNS out of the already low preferences,” he clarified.
The SNS is intensifying the pressure, despite the fact that they will probably not get the post of head of the Slovak Republic. What’s the point? “SNS sullenly insists on the position of the chairman of the National Assembly of the Slovak Republic and is not willing to come to a different agreement with the coalition partners. The escalation of pressure from the SNS is more like a ‘trucpodnik’,” says Řádek. “It’s a fight for the voter, so that the voters of Hlasa are not only stolen by Smer, or the opposition, the SNS would also like to grab something,” states Cirner.
Whether this is really a major conflict or just a cover-up maneuver for the coalition to distract attention from the consequences of consolidation with proxy topics will be revealed later. “Already from the first weeks of the new government, it was clear that this election period would not be an era of boring parliamentary politics or reconciliation. Robert Fico needs a political conflict for his political life, and he is seconded by other representatives of the current government such as Andrej Danko and Tomáš Taraba,” adds Řádek. “We will see how the coalition MPs will react in the parliament to the presented consolidation proposals, it will be a serious test of the coalition’s cohesion,” stated Cirner.
Source: spravy.pravda.sk
