BRATISLAVA, December 16, (WEBNOVINY) — Opposition MP Peter Kazimir (SMER-SD) thinks that the planned reallocation of EU structural funds totaling about EUR 400 million from various operational programs for highway construction will cause disagreements in the governing coalition. “With the amount of trust and contentiousness that you manifest, I predict that there will be a dog fight for the money,“ he said. He thinks that the Cabinet will open operational programs and tens of millions of euros will be transferred from one ministry of one coalition party to programs of another coalition party. “I wish you all the luck with this and on the other hand I strongly doubt that you will succeed,“ said the opposition deputy.
He thinks that if the government succeeds, it will need to count on cooperation with the European Commission. “Slovakia does not seem to rank among the most popular EU countries among bureaucrats in Brussels,“ underscored Kazimir with reference to the government’s refusal to provide a loan to Greece and statements by Speaker of Parliament Richard Sulik about the need to develop „Plan B“ for reintroduction of the Slovak crown. He is convinced that EC officials will remember this negative image of Slovakia.
“You are about to tear operational programs to pieces in the middle of the programming period and thus in fact cast doubt on drawing EU funds as such,“ he said. He asked why the Ministry of Finance had not been publishing data on EU funds drawing in monthly terms over the past two months. “According to our information, the ministry has not done so because EU funds drawing has significantly slowed down,“ added Kazimir.
SITA