PS: 4th Recovery Plan Payment Approved, Slovakia Still Has No Money on Account

Bratislava, July 19 (TASR) - The Economic and Financial Committee as one of the bodies of the European Commission (EC) approved on Thursday (July 18) the fourth payment for Slovakia from the recovery plan, which was with a significant delay, while the funds are still not available to the state, the opposition Progressive Slovakia (PS) party reported on Friday. "It's important that the money reaches Slovakia so that we can benefit from it and, of course, it would have been ideal if it had been half a year earlier, but as I said, better later than never," PS MP Stefan Kiss said in connection with the actions of the current government, pointing to the ongoing discussions with the EC regarding the lack of corrections to the Penal Code, which have an impact on the disbursement of payments. Kiss also drew attention to the previous problems in the recovery plan, which were related to spending limits, the rule of law and pension reform. At the same time, he highlighted the actions of the former government, during whose term of office Slovakia was one of the countries which, according to him, implemented the recovery plan the fastest and drew funds from it efficiently. According to him, previous governments have received €3 billion from the recovery plan in the last two years. "Since October, when the fourth government of Robert Fico took office, nine months have passed, we have specifically zero additional euros in our account and the fourth payment for a billion has been blocked," said Kiss. am/mcs