Premier: Decision on Sending MiG-29s to Ukraine Constitutionally Clean

(RTVS, 'O pat minut dvanast', March 19) Speaking on RTVS's discussion programme 'O 5 minut 12' (Five Minutes to Twelve) on Sunday, interim Prime Minister Eduard Heger said that the decision of the interim government to send MiG-29 fighters to Ukraine is constitutionally clean. But independent MP and leader of the extra-parliamentary Voice-SD party Peter Pellegrini, who was also on the show, didn't agree with it. Heger maintains that several experts confirmed the constitutionality of the decision. "I requested that we do it only if we're sure and only in such a way that it's in accordance with the Constitution," he stated, pointing out that the government signed an agreement with Ukraine for the delivery of the fighter jets. Pellegrini respects the decision, however, he thinks that the government had neither the right nor the power to decide on such an issue, pointing to several legal analyses. "You did it the way you did it and now you're responsible for it," he said, adding that the cabinet should have approached the Constitutional Court on this issue. He claims that if he were the prime minister, fighter jets would be flying in Slovakia. The prime minister responded that it was Pellegrini's government that decided that MiG-29 pilots stopped training and reiterated that the jet fighters were decommissioned and Slovakia couldn't use them. am