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INEKO: SaS, SDKU and Most-Hid Have Best Manifestos for Public Finances
Thursday 27 May 2010 Zoom in | Print page
Bratislava, May 27 (TASR) - Three political parties appear most able to ensure that public finances will be sustainable - the non-parliamentary Freedom and Solidarity (SaS), SDKU-DS and non-parliamentary Most-Hid, according to a survey carried out by the INEKO institute that was published on Thursday.
Nine economists from banks and the non-government sector looked at the election programmes of the eight parties that have the best chances of getting into Parliament after the general election on June 12. They decided that the Slovak National Party (SNS), Smer-SD and LS-HZDS should be placed at the bottom of the table.
The analysts warn that Slovakia's public finances are in a very poor state at the moment, while election programmes in general don't include specific measures to ensure the necessary consolidation. According to the analysts, it won't be enough to simply rely on growing incomes. The next government should significantly reduce public expenditures, carry out a reform of levies and the pension system, take strict measures against corruption, and carry out privatisations.
"If the parties are as passive as their election programmes suggest, Slovakia can either expect its state debt to grow or higher taxes," said Radovan Durana from the INESS institute, pointing out that the latter would affect Slovakia's competitiveness, result in lower economic growth, and have a negative influence on employment and the stability of public finances.
The programme measure assessed as the best one was SDKU's promise to restrict the approval of legislation with a negative impact on the state budget and to compensate for any such measures that are passed with others of the same level of power.
Positive marks were also given to promises such as to halt the creation of debts, the introduction of maximum expenditures, brakes on debt, and the consolidation of public finances, which appear in the programmes of various parties. "For example, the Christian Democrats (KDH) want to consolidate at a rate of 0.5 percent of GDP a year, SNS wants to reduce the deficit below 3 percent by 2012, and SaS wants to ensure a balanced budget by 2014 by law," said INEKO director Peter Golias.
Conversely, the worst ideas are promises not to increase the pension age (Smer, KDH, HZDS) and to introduce a 13th pension (Smer, HZDS, SNS, the ethnic-Hungarian SMK). HZDS's proposal to reduce interest rates on consumer credit for people with low incomes was also criticised. A number of economists warned that similar measures led to the financial crisis in the U.S.A.
Measures suggested in terms of family policy face criticism as well. In case of SDKU, the economists don't like the idea of granting a two-year mortgage holiday after the birth of a first child, contributions towards credit payments and prolonging maternity leave to one year. In the case of KDH, INEKO disliked a one-year tax-levy holiday for newly-wed couples, as well as a reduction in pension levies and the lowering of the pension age for women according to the number of children.
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