Fico: Smer-SD Is Making Mikulas Dzurinda's Dreams Reality

Nitra, October 21 (TASR) – Prime Minister and governing Smer-SD party head Robert Fico began the party’s conference in Nitra on Saturday by enumerating the achievements of the party and Slovak Government .

According to Fico, the Smer-SD party in now turning former two-time prime minister (1998-2002 and 2002-2006) Mikulas Dzurinda’s dreams about doubling the salaries into reality. “We’ve managed to increase the minimum wage by 90 percent and as early as in 2019 it should exceed €500. So we’re really going to double it in the future,” said Fico.

He went on to say that a total of 129,424 new jobs have been created in Slovakia between 2016-17 and the unemployment rate has fallen to 6.42 percent. “The real salaries are growing and … I want to achieve a balanced budget in 2020. However, it’s not a sacred cow for us, we don’t want to hear ‘save’ and ‘save’ all the time. When, for God’s sake, is the right time to give something to people if not now? We want to give people something in the form of a fourth social package,” said Fico.

The social package should include higher bonuses for working at night, at weekends and on public holidays as well as contributions for travelling and moving to work in another locality, hikes in contributions for families taking care of a relative and other measures.

Fico further stated that the party also wants to submit a proposal on enacting the minimum wage into the Constitution to “prevent the centre-right parties from speculating in this regard”.

Furthermore, the Smer-SD party also wants to introduce the retirement age caps. “It (retirement age) is likely to prolong, but it should be set for how many years we want to let some types of employees work hard. It’s legitimate to look for some reasonable limits,” he said.