Kamenicky: Additional Defence Spending Must Not Jeopardise Our Social Programmes

Brussels, March 11 (TASR-correspondent) - Among other matters, EU finance ministers (Ecofin) on Tuesday in Brussels discussed the results of last week's extraordinary EU summit on defence and increases in defence spending. Finance Minister Ladislav Kamenicky (Smer-SD) told TASR after the Ecofin meeting, adding that Slovakia doesn't want higher defence spending to come at the expense of social programmes. Kamenicky pointed out that the new US administration is no longer trying very hard to finance Europe's defence, which is why Europeans are deciding to spend much more on their own defence than before. In this context, he stressed that it's important for him, as finance minister, that these expenditures will be "bearable" for Slovakia and that financing these expenditures will be made possible by exceptions to the fiscal rules of the Stability and Growth Pact. "We can't afford today to allocated the funds we need for social programmes on defence. In terms of the new rules, we want to use these resources more for dual use. For example, we're talking about building a hospital in Presov that will be used for both military and civilian purposes. We want to finish bridges to make them passable for military equipment, but bridges and roads are also important for other people," he stated. According to him, the ministers also discussed the possibility of using EU cohesion funds for defence purposes, and he pointed out that Slovakia is drawing these funds at a slow rate. Therefore, he would welcome redirecting part of these funds to the defence sphere so that they are not lost. am/df