Danko: Our Coalition Partner Grossly Breached Coalition Agreement, Not SNS

        Bratislava, 30 September (TASR) - Leader of the junior coalition Slovak National Party (SNS) Andrej Danko denies that his party breached the coalition agreement in connection with Tuesday's (29 September) parliamentary vote on the dismissal of Environment Minister Tomas Taraba (an SNS nominee), TASR learnt from Danko's post on a social network on Wednesday.
        According to Danko, it was their coalition partner that grossly breached the agreement. "Smer-SD must understand that SNS has exhausted all options for replacing its minister. There is no political party that, like us, wouldn't dismiss a minister if he had lost the party's confidence," he stated.
        "Unless the quarrelling members of the governing coalition come to their senses immediately and sit down at a negotiating table, people will watch with dismay as we focus on a power struggle rather than addressing their problems," wrote leader of the coalition Voice-SD party and Interior Minister Matus Sutaj Estok in a social media post on Tuesday (29 September) evening. Among other things, he mentioned a "new parliamentary 'majority' of progressives alongside the Slovak National Party (SNS)".
        MP Richard Gluck (Smer-SD) reiterated that the situation surrounding Taraba and SNS isn't a dispute involving Smer-SD. He believes that Premier Robert Fico (Smer-SD) was fully within his rights to say this and to let the parties involved resolve the conflict amongst themselves. He argued that there was no longer any scope for creating 'any further ministries' or anything else. He also said that the coalition agreement states that every coalition partner must be able to guarantee support for government proposals in Parliament, which wasn't the case here, as "voting in the House was made conditional on personnel changes at the Environment Ministry". Meanwhile, he stated, Smer MPs are prepared for any further developments in the situation, including a possible early parliamentary election.
        Independent MP Jan Ferencak, who previously belonged to Voice-SD, told journalists that he'd support a no-confidence motion in the government, given that Interior Minister Matus Sutaj Estok (Voice-SD) remains part of it. However, he believes that the premier will do everything in his power to prevent a snap election. He described Tuesday's motion to remove Taraba from office in Parliament as a "show" staged by the SNS leader.
        Parliament voted by 77 votes on Tuesday to remove vice-premier and environment minister Tomas Taraba from office. The opposition succeeded in pushing through the motion to dismiss Taraba with the support of almost all MPs from the SNS parliamentary caucus. In this context, the Smer-SD coalition party convened a party leadership meeting on Wednesday to decide on its next course of action. Fico claimed on social media that SNS has forced him to take this approach.