Parliament to Deal with No-confidence Motions in Ministers Wednesday Evening-2

Bratislava, 3 February (TASR) - MPs will debate opposition motions to dismiss several ministers, as well as a no-confidence in the government as a whole, following a vote at 5 p.m. on Wednesday (4 February), Parliament has decided based on a proposal of the coalition caucuses. The seven no-confidence motions in ministers and the single no-confidence motion in the entire government should be discussed during a joint, merged debate. The opposition is seeking to dismiss Defence Minister Robert Kalinak (Smer-SD), Culture Minister Martina Simkovicova, Environment Minister Tomas Taraba (both Slovak National Party/SNS nominees), Interior Minister Matus Sutaj Estok, Health Minister Kamil Sasko (both Voice-SD), Investment Minister Samuel Migal (Independent), and Transport Minister Jozef Raz (a Smer-SD nominee). These motions were filed a long time ago, and the debates on them have repeatedly been postponed from one session to another. For example, the opposition submitted the motion to dismiss the interior minister in December 2024. The no-confidence motion in the whole government was also submitted a year ago. The opposition requested that the debates should not be merged. MP Zora Jaurova (Progressive Slovakia/PS) submitted an amending proposal at the session suggesting that the motions seeking dismissals of individual ministers should be debated separately. Parliament didn't back her proposal, however. The opposition also criticised the decision to start the debate on the motions at 5 p.m., expressing its concerns about night-time deliberations. "They've merged all the motions into a single debate so that we'll have much less time to speak about the coalition's failures, of which there is a huge number, and scheduled it for 5 p.m. on Wednesday. This clearly means that they intend to plan night-time deliberations to make sure that no one will hear when we go through all their failures," stated Zuzana Stevulova (PS). NOTE: This story has been extended to include the final paragraph. ko/df