Ziga: Gov't Refused to Adopt Stance on Renewable Energy Sources Act

Bratislava, September 12 (TASR) - The Government hasn't yet adopted a stance on the opposition-sponsored amendments to the Renewable Energy Sources Support Act and Highly Effective Combined Production Act, designed to prevent the incineration of quality timber, Economy Minister Peter Ziga (Smer-SD) said after the Government session on Wednesday. According to Ziga, the motion was ill-phrased from a technical standpoint. "Despite its probable good intentions, the Parliament poorly formulated the amendment. If the motion had been shepherded through the House in its first reading, as proposed by MPs, the bill would have been unworkable. We would have had two biomass definitions, with the new definition that the opposition lawmakers wished to introduce flying in the face of the definition used in the EU directive," said Ziga, adding that Slovakia might then face infringement proceedings from the European Commission and potential losses. "We concurred that we've got nothing against interests pursued by the motion proposed by the opposition MPs. However, technically it was unworkable. We arrived at an agreement that the submitter MP group will sit down and try to re-draft the wording of the amendment and then either re-submit it to the Government or the Parliament," added Ziga. mf/mcs/am