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Pociatek: Parliament Can't Be Ignored in Regard to Greek Bailout
Thursday 06 May 2010 Zoom in | Print page
Bratislava, May 6 (TASR) - Parliament can't be ignored when it comes to the issue of the loan to Greece, said Slovak Finance Minister Jan Pociatek (Smer-SD) on Thursday.
Pociatek stated that Slovak MPs have to okay legislative amendments as well as the specific contracts linked to Slovakia's potential bilateral loan of €816 million to Greece.
"It wasn't the Government's intention to ignore Parliament, because that simply isn't possible," said Pociatek at a session of the parliamentary committee for European affairs summoned before Prime Minister Robert Fico leaves for an extraordinary session of the leaders of eurozone-member countries in Brussels on Friday, May 7.
According to Pociatek, specific governmental proposals can be debated in Parliament only after Greece passes legislative amendments dealing with the strict saving measures that it has to adopt before receiving a bailout. He thinks, therefore, that the Opposition's summoning of an extraordinary parliamentary session is purpose-built and nothing more than a pre-election fuss.
On the other hand, the Opposition claims that Fico doesn't have any mandate for the discussions in Brussels without a decision from the Slovak Parliament.
Slovak opposition MPs viewed Thursday's session of the parliamentary committee for European affairs as irrelevant and so walked out at the beginning, thereby denying the committee the quorum needed to pass a resolution concerning the Brussels summit.
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