Beblavy: Opposition Is Submitting Trivial and Recycled Draft Laws

Bratislava, May 19 (TASR) – Opposition MPs are submitting trivial, recycled and incomplete bills to parliamentary sessions, Opposition MP Miroslav Beblavy (Independent) told a news conference on Thursday.

Beblavy thinks that the Opposition should come up with fewer but more important and better elaborated laws. “It isn’t suitable for the Opposition to submit dozens of laws at each session only to make itself visible. This is to the detriment of quality. It isn’t right when the same parties come up with seven amendments to the Labour Code at a single session,” he said.

Concerning the high number of initiatives submitted by Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) and OLaNO-NOVA, Beblavy said that they are only recycling drafts from the previous electoral term. Despite his criticism, Beblavy said that the Siet (Network) defectors will support 45 Opposition-sponsored drafts from the total of 57 because they view them as being correct or want to show solidarity.

Katarina Machackova (Independent) believes that the aim shouldn’t be to submit 40 bills to each session. “Our goal is to be a constructive and practical Opposition. At the same time we expect the coalition to end the arrogance of power and to launch discussions on individual proposals,” she said.

Simona Petrik (Independent) said that Beblavy, Machackova and herself submitted one draft law to the current session that is aimed at guaranteeing places in nursery schools. This was among Siet’s main pledges before the general election, but Beblavy, Machackova and Petrik all quit that party when it subsequently joined a coalition with Smer-SD, the Slovak National Party (SNS) and Most-Hid.

MPs from the governing coalition haven’t submitted a single legislative proposal to the current parliamentary session, while the Opposition came up with 57. Sessions containing 100 points with a 1:1 ratio between coalition and opposition drafts were nothing unusual in the past.