Fico: State Could Spend €1.7 billion on Growth Measures

Bratislava/Handlova, 15 May (TASR) - The state could allocate around €1.7 billion to announced pro-growth measures through savings, said Prime Minister Robert Fico (Smer-SD) in the village of Handlova on Friday on the second anniversary of the assassination attempt against him. In Fico's view, the best solution would be for everyone to cut spending by 3 percent — the state, municipalities, self-governing regions, state-owned social insurer SP and health-insurers alike. He also admitted the possibility of a higher public-finance deficit. "Out of €50 billion, 3 percent is around €1.7 billion, which I'd like to use exclusively to support economic growth, even at the cost of the deficit being slightly higher," said Fico. "We'd also prefer to abolish the transaction tax, but that would immediately create a revenue shortfall of €400 million to €500 million. So, we're asking ourselves where we would find that €400 million to €500 million. If we agree that 3-percent savings will be made everywhere, we can also address the transaction tax issue, certainly yes," he underlined. According to Fico, no member of the coalition will support lowering people's social standards. "What exists today will remain untouched. On the contrary, I'm talking instead about savings that would allow us to adopt significant pro-growth measures, but that discussion awaits us in the summer. For now, we'll only approve measures that have no impact on the state budget," he stated, adding that the coalition partners will discuss economic measures affecting the budget in June or July. "We'd be glad if the state budget could be approved as quickly as possible, perhaps in September or October of this year," he said. The prime minister added that party experts are currently assessing 90 proposals for pro-growth measures with no impact on the budget. "Those that will have an impact on the state budget will only be discussed once the draft state budget is on the table," he added. Fico stated that the government could approve the budget-neutral pro-growth measures as early as next Wednesday, 20 May, in the form of a single law, which Parliament will then consider under a fast-track procedure. "At Wednesday's cabinet session, we could approve the first package of measures, and they'll be submitted as a single law — we want to draft one law on pro-growth measures. I'll speak to the president so that he'll understand why we are proceeding via a fast-track legislative procedure. I believe that this is a situation in which a fast-track procedure is appropriate. We'll submit it to the House session starting at the end of May, on 26 May," he said. "Then a second package will follow, for where we'll discuss options for finding a certain volume of money for measures that should provide a more substantial boost to economic growth. These may come at the end of June or beginning of July," added the prime minister. mf/df