Kiss: Government Misled Voters on Cheaper Food, Prices Continue to Climb

Bratislava, 15 July (TASR) – The ruling coalition parties deceived voters when they previously promised them cheaper food, opposition MP Stefan Kiss (Progressive Slovakia/PS) said on Tuesday in reaction to the latest data from the Slovak Statistics Office. According to the figures, year-on-year inflation in Slovakia reached 4.3 percent in June – the highest in the past year and a half. Prices of food and non-alcoholic beverages rose by more than 4 percent. Kiss, a member of the House Finance and Budgetary Committee pointed out that the government had promised at the end of last year that these prices would not rise thanks to reduced value-added tax (VAT). „The government decided to lower VAT not only on basic foodstuffs but also for hotels and restaurants. The result? A price increase of nearly 10 percent. The state collected less in taxes, but this measure not only failed to deliver the promised discounts – prices in this sector actually rose faster than overall inflation,” he underlined. According to him, alongside rising public debt, the introduction of the transaction tax, discouragement of investors and accelerating price growth pose further proof of the poor performance by Finance Minister Ladislav Kamenicky (Smer-SD). „He’s running a growing deficit even while imposing Fico’s high-cost policies and talking about fiscal consolidation. Prices are rising even for items with reduced tax rates. We really don’t need more proof of his incompetence. It’s time for him to step down,” Kiss stated. The Finance Ministry recently responded by saying that claims about a dramatic or record rise in food prices in Slovakia – mostly made by certain politicians – are untrue and primarily aimed at stirring negative public sentiment. „According to official Eurostat data, Slovakia’s food inflation excluding beverages is the lowest since 2021. From January to May 2025, the average year-on-year growth in food prices reached 2.2 percent. This is even lower than for the entire year 2024 (2.5 percent),” the ministry reported. The ministry also recalled that the highest food price increases occurred in 2022 and 2023, when they rose by a record total of 40.2 percent. mf