Groehling: 2025 Was Year of Price Hikes and Corruption

Bratislava, 15 January (TASR) – Last year was a year of rising prices and corruption, leader of the opposition's Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) party Branislav Groehling has stated in an interview with TASR. He reproached the governing coalition for several steps and laws it pushed through, criticising, for example, talks between Prime Minister Robert Fico (Smer-SD) and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Groehling also pointed to rising prices and blasted the amendment to the Constitution as well as changes to the Criminal Code. "Almost the entire year was marked by stealing, squandering public finances, rising living costs and squeezing people dry with increased levies and VAT tax," he told TASR. The SaS head also mentioned suspicions surrounding the ambulance service tender and the results of calls for support projects for research and development. In addition, Groehling took potshots at the foreign policy of Fico's government. "Government representatives are pulling us towards Moscow. They do not want us to be part of the group of countries with a higher standard of living, where people wish to travel and young people want to study," he added. He also objected to last year's government steps in the area of the rule of law and reiterated his reservations about the amendment to the Criminal Code and the law abolishing the Office for the Protection of Whistleblowers. In both cases, he criticised the legislative process and underlined that Parliament devoted most of the time at its last December session to these pieces of legislation. "Laws that would help people, prevent price rises or solve theft were not addressed, but the entire December was devoted only to helping mafiosos, corrupt figures and thieves," he said. Groehling pointed to a crisis within the governing coalition. "They are losing MPs, the number is constantly decreasing. They are currently already at a very critical threshold to be able to govern without concern," he noted. He expects that the governing coalition will have problems this year pushing legislative proposals through the House. "They will have to negotiate individually with various MPs," he stated. However, Groehling believes that people in Slovakia perceive this. He pointed out that support for the coalition parties is declining, which he described as positive. He declared that SaS will therefore continue this year to point out negative measures of the governing coalition. In addition, he underlined that last year SaS managed to protect public finances in this way, pointing to the fact that they communicated, for example, their suspicions surrounding the ambulance service tender or calls for support projects for research and development. mf