Parliament: Environment Minister Tomas Taraba Ousted with 77 votes
Bratislava, 29 September (TASR) - Parliament ousted Environment Minister Tomas Taraba (a Slovak National Party/SNS nominee) with 77 votes on Tuesday evening, with all 77 MPs present in the chamber voting in favour of his dismissal and 73 MPs absent.
Parliament debated the no-confidence motion against Taraba for just over an hour. Apart from opposition Progressive Slovakia (PS) MP Tamara Stohlova who submitted the motion, only Taraba and SNS leader Andrej Danko took part in the debate.
Earlier on Tuesday, the opposition along with almost all MPs of the SNS caucus succeeded in bringing the motion forward on the agenda, with SNS also agreeing to this procedure as, according to Danko, the party had exhausted all options.
SNS did not agree with Prime Minister Robert Fico (Smer-SD) withdrawing the proposal for Taraba's dismissal. Fico justified it by stating that "developments triggered by SNS's request and the subsequent stances taken up by its representatives pose a serious risk to maintaining the parliamentary majority and the proper functioning of the government".
In May, Taraba, Fico and Danko agreed that if the environment minister and SNS failed to reconcile, Taraba would leave office by the end of September. The agreement ended an open dispute between the party and its nominee at the time.
According to Danko, there has been no substantive discussion with Taraba for a long time, including on important documents prepared by the ministry. SNS stressed that it cannot bear political responsibility for zoning, wind farms, battery plants, pumped-storage power stations, fines imposed on the people for illegal wells, foreign business trips or other projects falling under Taraba's remit.
Taraba repeatedly stated in recent months that he didn't intend to leave his post as minister and that Danko had all the information about the ministry's management. Taraba claimed that he's the only minister in the history of Slovakia to have faced dismissal for doing his job, "saving money and conducting transparent public procurement procedures of an international nature." He declared that "if someone dismisses me for this, I'll respond accordingly". Taraba also stated that if he left the ministry, he'd once again become a politician.
SNS's nominee for the new environment minister is current Deputy Environment Minister Filip Kuffa. President Peter Pellegrini said at the end of August that if there was to be a change of in the post of minister, the nominee must be of higher quality, adding that in Slovakia, there are better-qualified candidates than Kuffa.
