BRATISLAVA, November 3, (WEBNOVINY) — Speaker of Parliament Richard Sulik of junior member of the ruling coalition SaS presented on Wednesday draft bill on salaries of parliamentary deputies and other constitutional officials and opened a parliamentary discussion about the proposal, which does not have clear support in the governing coalition. Anton Marcincin of coalition Christian-Democrats labeled the proposal as complicated and quite pointless.
In Marcincin’s opinion, the draft bill’s aim is not to cut government spending but populism. “This is not the path I would like to take,” he said, adding that does not want to go the way of [Silvio] Berlusconi or [Viktor] Orban; he prefers a conservative rightist direction. Moreover, Marcincin, as an economist, sees this proposal as dangerous. The Christian-Democrats will support the draft bill in the first reading; however, they will support it in the second reading before the definite approval procedure only after their amending proposals are adopted, he said.
According to opposition deputy Stefan Zelnik of the SNS party, the proposal is only a cover-up for further non-transparent management at the Cabinet Office. He is convinced that such draft bill would make sense only if parliament controlled the Cabinet. On the other hand, ruling coalition deputy Ondrej Dostal of MOST-HID’s deputy faction considers the proposed mechanism correct.
President of the Supreme Court and former justice minister Stefan Harabin thinks that the coalition proposal of changes to salaries of some constitutional officials ignores the fundamental law of the state. He criticized the fact that the proposal did not go through the Judicial Council, which he presides, for an evaluation, as the law influences salaries of judges as well. His statement was presented to parliament by Dusan Caplovic (SMER-SD) as the deputies did not allow Harabin to address parliament during the discussion to this draft bill. According to Dostal, the idea to present Harabin’s statements by a different deputy could be convenient in future as well as the statement was much more concise than when he was previously commenting draft bill on law on judges tailored by Justice Minister Lucia Zitnanska, adding that it could be done without raising one’s voice and losing one’s temper.
Head of SaS Sulik proposed to cut costs related to activities of legislators by ten percent. The parliamentary deputy’s income should shrink by a so-called „Fico’s levy“, which will represent twofold the percentage rate of the general deficit. As the gap for this year is estimated at 7.8 percent of GDP, the levy will be at 15.6 percent. Simultaneously, Sulik plans to unfreeze salaries of lawmakers, which have been at the same level for two years. Flat compensations provided to lawmakers will also go down while expenditures for assistants and renting a deputy office will fall from the present EUR 2,500 to EUR 2,025. The severance pay for legislators will shrink from five to three monthly salaries. The net income of a deputy in Bratislava will go down by 4.6 percent and outside Bratislava by 3.6 percent as of next year.
SITA