government
Coalition crisis in Slovakia: Liberal ministers resign
After the SaS ministers resigned, Prime Minister Eduard Heger announced the transition to a minority cabinet. photo
© Jaroslav Novák/TASR/dpa
A coalition crisis is escalating in Slovakia, neighboring Ukraine. This makes solving the energy crisis even more difficult. Instead of solving the economic problems, the parties paralyze each other.
After months of dispute in the Slovakian government coalition, all ministers of the liberal party Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) who were still in office resigned on Monday. Party leader Richard Sulik had already left at the end of August as economics minister and deputy prime minister. He was now followed by Foreign Minister Ivan Korcok, Minister of Education Branislav Gröhling and Minister of Justice Maria Kolikova.
Without SaS, the other three parties no longer have a majority in Parliament. The conservative Prime Minister Eduard Heger therefore announced the transition to a minority cabinet. It is therefore likely to become even more difficult to find a way out of the economic crisis.
As early as July, the Liberals issued an ultimatum for the resignation of conservative-populist Finance Minister Igor Matovic. He is also the leader of the largest governing party, Ordinary People and Independent Personalities (Olano), to which Prime Minister Heger also belongs. President Caputova has repeatedly criticized the fact that the government has still not presented its long-awaited package of measures against rising energy prices. Instead, the coalition only deals with internal disputes “that nobody is interested in anymore.”
The Liberal ultimatum was triggered by the fact that Finance Minister Matovic pushed through a controversial family support program in July against the votes of the Liberals and with the help of an extreme right-wing party in Parliament. The two parties to the dispute also have opposing positions on the question of whether taxes may be increased to combat the crisis.
For the time being, there should be no course change in support for neighboring Ukraine. All previous governing parties have always agreed on this. More than 770,000 people have arrived in Slovakia from Ukraine since the Russian invasion began on February 24. Based on its population of just 5.5 million inhabitants, Slovakia has taken in more refugees from the Ukraine than any other EU country. The NATO member also supports Ukraine massively with arms deliveries, which are partly compensated by Germany.