Sutaj Estok: Coalition Council to Deal Mainly with Consolidation on Wednesday

Bratislava, August 28 (TASR) - The leaders of the coalition parties should mainly deal with the issue of consolidating public finances at the Coalition Council session on Wednesday, said Interior Minister Matus Sutaj Estok (Voice-SD leader) following the cabinet session on Wednesday. "We'll primarily speak about consolidation at today's Coalition Council session," Sutaj Estok told journalists. He will wait for Finance Minister Ladislav Kamenicky (Smer-SD) to say what pressure is being exerted on cost-saving. Sutaj Estok expects cost-saving at a level of €2 billion next year. "We must find agreement in the coalition so that these measures will also bring some results," he remarked. The Voice-SD leader said that he was meeting coalition partners during the summer and that he hopes that they will manage to resolve the issue of the new parliamentary chair on Wednesday. Environment Minister Tomas Taraba (a Slovak National Party/SNS) views this in a similar way. "I think that there's a preliminary agreement," said Taraba when asked about the parliamentary chair issue. However, the leaders of Smer-SD, Voice-SD and SNS must come to an agreement. "We need to move on," he said, adding that he doesn't know about any potential changes at the ministries. Premier Robert Fico (Smer-SD) said that the issue must be resolved by the junior coalition parties Voice-SD and SNS. He stated that he's been helping to mediate an agreement between them because the post in question must be stabilised. In line with the coalition agreement, the parliamentary chair post belongs to the Voice-SD party, which wants to see its vice-chair Richard Rasi appointed. However, SNS is claiming the post as well, with its leader Andrej Danko saying that it would be ideal if the three governing parties occupied the posts of the top three constitutional officials, noting that Voice-SD founder Peter Pellegrini has become the president. ko/df