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Meciar: HZDS and Smer Didn't Violate Coalition Agreement
Thursday 11 February 2010 Zoom in | Print page
Bratislava, February 11 (TASR) - Coalition parties LS-HZDS and Smer-SD didn't violate the Coalition Agreement on Wednesday when they voted in favour of Mojmir Mamojka's (Smer-SD) amendment to the law on universities, said HZDS chairman Vladimir Meciar at a press conference on Thursday in reaction to statements made by Slovak National Party (SNS) vice-chair Anna Belousovova on the same day.
"Free voting was agreed on at a coalition session, meaning that everybody could vote as they liked. We, as well as Smer, wanted to vote this way," stressed Meciar, adding that he views the walkout by SNS MPs after the vote as an empty gesture.
Meciar backed the decision to vote in favour of the amendment by pointing to the fact that it increases the retirement age for university lecturers, which ought to provide more time to prepare competent successors and thereby guarantee the continued existence of university departments.
According to Belousovova, the amendment interferes with an agenda that belongs exclusively to the remit of the SNS-led Education Ministry. "The vote that passed the proposal to its second reading was an unpleasant disenchantment for us. There were coalition agreements that this law doesn't get round," she said, adding that SNS doesn't interfere in the agendas of its coalition partners.
Belousovova stressed several times that one of the aims of Education Minister Jan Mikolaj has been to halt the devaluation of a Slovak university education, including by tightening up accreditation conditions, but Mamojka's proposal is a step backwards and dismantles university reform.
The amendment to the law on universities allows colleges to grant masters and engineering degrees, as well as doctorates. Mikolaj considers this proposal to be incompetent and a "rather substantial interference" in the current system.
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