PS-Together Submit Two Bills to Curb Power of Oligarchs

PS-Together Submit Two Bills to Curb Power of Oligarchs

Bratislava, November 8 (TASR) – On Friday representatives of the Progressive Slovakia (PS)-Together coalition will submit to Parliament two laws that should curb the power of oligarchs, calling them Lex Hascak, party leaders Michal Truban and Miroslav Beblavy told a news conference on the same day.

The first draft law stipulates that one owner cannot concurrently run a health insurance company, a pharmacy and a health-care provider. “He must choose one of them,” said Beblavy, adding they also expect the law to limit the power of the financial group that currently controls a large part of the health-care sector in Slovakia.

The second bill addresses the conflict of interests in the media. All media with turnover of over €1 million should be inscribed in the anti-letter box register so that their actual owner is identifiable. The law also deals with big media with turnovers of over €5 million that trade with the state or are engaged in the health-care sector. “They will either give up control over media, or they will have to give up state money,” said Beblavy. The conflict of interests should be judged by the Anti-monopoly Office.

They are submitting the laws called Lex Hascak to Parliament along with Independent MPs Lucia Zitnanska, Martin Poliacik and Alan Suchanek.

Meanwhile, PS-Together published results of a survey carried out at the turn of October and November by the Focus polling agency on a sample of 1,020 respondents based on their order. As many as 32.9 percent of respondents expressed a negative opinion and 47.2 percent extremely negative opinion on the Penta financial group. Rather positive opinions prevailed among 8.6 percent of respondents.