Remisova Launches Petition to Protect Slovakia's Water and Land

Bratislava, 13 August (TASR) - MP Veronika Remisova ('Slovakia'-For the People) has launched a petition to protect Slovakia's water, land and strategic infrastructure, calling on citizens to deliver their signatures, TASR learnt on Thursday. With respect to the government moves concerning a deal at the Bratislava port, she also announced she filed a criminal complaint and submitted complaints to the Supreme Audit Office (NKU) and the Public Procurement Office (UVO). "We're asking people to sign the petition and make it clear to the government that we will not allow Prime Minister Robert Fico (Smer-SD) to hand control over water, land and strategic infrastructure to Arab sheikhs," Remisova declared at a press conference on Thursday. According to Remisova, the prime minister is grossly misleading the public by claiming that EU funds are unavailable for the renovation of irrigation systems and that investors from the United Arab Emirates are therefore needed. "Robert Fico has misled people again. He claims that we have neither state budget funding nor EU funds for irrigation renovation. Yet his own agriculture minister has published an approved document on the ministry's website which clearly allocates €32 million specifically for irrigation. The problem is therefore not a lack of money. The problem is that the government has still not made the funds available to Slovak farmers. I ask whether this is being deliberately sabotaged so that control over irrigation can be handed to Arab sheikhs," she said. Remisova called on the government to immediately publish a timetable and launch calls for the renovation of irrigation systems using EU funds. "Slovakia has water. Slovakia has land. And we have farmers who want to work it. The government's task is to ensure that they can continue to do so in 20 or 50 years, not to create a system in which they will be completely dependent on Arab sheikhs," she underlined. Remisova added that some Slovak farmers have already told the media that they will stop cultivating their land if the government handed irrigation systems over to Arab sheikhs. "And perhaps that is exactly what Fico wants. Arab sheikhs are not coming to Slovakia to do charity, but to do hard business, and they will raise water prices for farmers. Farmers will be unable to afford them and go bankrupt, after which Arab sheikhs will buy up agricultural land. This is not fiction, but a real-life example from other European countries, such as Romania," Remisova warned. mf