Monitor: Pellegrini Calls for Growth-focused Budget with Hospital Investment

(TA3,'V politike', 12 July) Speaking on TA3's political discussion programme 'V politike' on Sunday, President Peter Pellegrini declared that he expects next year's public finance budget proposal to include measures to support economic growth, as Slovakia must restart its economy and make real investments. Pellegrini added that the budget must also allocate funding to complete unfinished hospitals. Pellegrini identified the transaction tax as a key issue. "I firmly believe the budget can be balanced through the transaction tax in a way that slightly eases the tax burden on entrepreneurs. There may also be other measures that simplify life for sole traders," he said. He added that Prime Minister Robert Fico (Smer-SD) had announced plans to introduce tax licences that would allow sole traders to pay their tax at the beginning of the year, simplifying both their accounting and their obligations to the state. Pellegrini said he expected the prime minister to secure approval for the budget by finding common ground among the coalition partners' demands. The president claimed he will have reservations about the budget if it failed to include growth measures or funding for unfinished hospital projects. "If the budget reflects what I have been talking about — growth measures and the continuation of major infrastructure projects — meaning that public money is not simply being spent on current consumption but is also being genuinely invested, then I can imagine that the level of public debt does not have to fall dramatically next year or in the years that follow," he said. Pellegrini also addressed questions about the designation of acceleration zones for the construction of wind farms. He stressed that the government was not planning to build wind turbines. Under the Recovery and Resilience Plan, he said, the objective was only to identify locations where such projects could potentially be developed more easily in the future. "Slovakia has one of the cleanest energy mixes, even cleaner than Austria's. That means nuclear power, hydropower and renewable sources. We do not need wind farms to reduce carbon dioxide emissions in Slovakia. The people should therefore have no concerns. Through the prime minister, this government has declared that no wind farms will be built in Slovakia. I see this purely as a discussion aimed at meeting the formal requirements of the Recovery and Resilience Plan, even though those requirements have generated considerable controversy," he said. mf