As expected, parliament has given the green light to Slovakia’s participation in the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF). Out of 142 MPs in attendance, it received the almost unanimous support of 140 of them, with one MP from Most-Hid, Ondrej Dostal, opposing the bill, and SNS vice-chairwoman Anna Belousovova abstaining.
Following voting, finance minister Ivan Miklos explained in Parliament that “We will only become part of the EFSF after a change of the law, which will then allow us to accept such a guarantee. Current legislation doesn’t enable it”.
The opposition claimed that the ruling parties had abused the issue in the election campaign, with Smer-SD MP Jozef Burian underlining that the SDKU-DS and SaS parties should be the first to apologise to their voters, as they were both originally against the EFSF. Finance minister Miklos replied by saying his party’s position had not changed, because the country has put conditions to its approval of the mechanism. In this respect, he then criticised the former government for having negotiated bad conditions for Slovakia.