Comment about Roma unwilling to work not discriminatory, says survey

In December, Prime Minister Robert Fico caused outrage with his comment that, "There is a new generation growing in Roma settlements that does not want to work," with some calling the comment discriminatory. However, according to the results of a telephone opinion poll conducted by Polis Slovakia, 79.3 percent of respondents agreed with the prime minister's comment. The second question in the poll asked if the comment was discriminatory against the Roma minority, in which 41.3 percent said no and 38 percent said yes. The polling agency carried out the survey between December 11 and 20 on a sample of 1,275 respondents.