Matecna Still Sees No Reason to Leave Post of Agriculture Minister
I still see no reason to leave the post of agriculture minister, stated head of the Agriculture and Rural Development Ministry Gabriela Matecna (a Slovak National Party/SNS nominee) on TA3’s programme ‘V politike’ (In Politics) on Sunday, a few days before an extraordinary parliamentary session during which she’ll face a no-confidence vote.
Opposition parties have already collected 44 signatures from MPs. The Opposition will try to dismiss Matecna from her post next Thursday (May 24).
In a discussion with Opposition MP Martin Fecko (OLaNO) from the parliamentary committee for agriculture and the environment, Matecna said that only a small number of people from among the around 19,000 farmers who receive payments from the Agriculture Payment Agency (PPA) demand that she should be ousted. “If someone files a criminal motion against me because we made a mistake somewhere, I’m a reasonable person, I have no problem with leaving [the post of minister],” she said.
“But I don’t see a reason, when half-truths and lies are being pulled out, to respond to this. This is not a factual and expert debate. This is politicking,” she claimed.
Fecko isn’t aware that any coalition MPs would support dismissing Matecna from her post. “No, I don’t know about such MPs,” he stated. However, he hopes that some MPs will be “moved by conscience” because even Prosecutor-General Jaromir Ciznar spoke publicly about major shortcomings in the system according to which the Agriculture Ministry functions.
