BRATISLAVA, December 21, (WEBNOVINY) — Salaries of deputies, Cabinet ministers and the president will not go up in 2012. The Slovak Parliament repeatedly approved the amendment to the law on remuneration of some constitutional officials that President Ivan Gasparovic vetoed and returned to Parliament this week. Freezing salaries was approved by parliament across the political spectrum with votes of all 134 deputies present in the 150-member parliament.
The plenum ignored the objection of the president who disagreed with a new provision according to which lawmakers will be entitled to receive their salaries as of the day when they are elected and not as the day when they take their oath of office, as it has been to date. Only seven MPs voted for acceptance of the president’s objection.
President Gasparovic returned the revision since based on the standing order deputies assume their mandates by taking an oath of office. “If deputies rejected to take oath or took oath with a reservation, in accordance with the Constitution this would result in losing their mandate,” he wrote in his reasoning. Opposition SMER-SD Deputy Miroslav Ciz considers this reason incomprehensible. “Unambiguously the mandate originates by election. The first month after elections is a period of the most intense activities,” he said in reference to the fact that the first session of parliament usually takes place a month after elections.
Salaries of the president and vice-presidents of the Supreme Audit Office, prosecutor general, ombudsman, heads of central state administration bodies and state employees in public positions will be frozen as well. Government expenditures on deputy assistants and offices will no go up either. On the contrary, salary freeze will not concern judges and prosecutors. This exception is reasoned by a finding of the Constitutional Court which rejected in the past lowering of judges’ salaries.
Next year’s growth of deputies’ salaries by several hundreds of euros would have been enabled by the so-called “Sulik’s formula” that was pushed through by previous Speaker of Parliament Richard Sulik (SaS). Based on it, deputies’ salaries are calculated as the threefold of the average salary in the national economy, while it can be lowered by up to 15 percent depending on the size of the general government deficit. Due to a high deficit in 2010, their salaries are lower by 15 percent. With regard to the fact that the deficit in 2011 will not probably exceed five percent of GDP, lowering of salaries should go down to five percent. The Finance Ministry estimated that according to the current wording of the law, deputy monthly salaries would go up by 652 euros. The salary freeze will come into force on January 1, 2012 regardless of whether President Gasparovic signs or not.
SITA