No highways without loosening debt brake

New tenders for the construction of highways cannot be announced before securing money for them, Transport Minister Árpád Érsek stated on Thursday at the 2017 Meeting of Slovak Construction Leaders in Bratislava. According to him, it is now necessary to wait for a proposal to appear in Parliament on releasing the public debt brake. At the same time, Érsek said that he did not have any good indications from Parliament that such a proposal could be approved. Nonetheless, analyst Ján Kovalčík from the INEKO think-tank at the meeting noted that the debt brake in fact did not represent such a huge obstacle to highway construction as the lack of properly-prepared construction projects, even though the National Highway Company has spent millions of euros on drawing up dozens of projects. In fact, only two minor projects are currently properly prepared, while only another two similar constructions could be planned out within a year, claimed the analyst. On the contrary, Pavol Kováčik, president of the Association of Slovak Construction Businesses, pointed to the departure of too many experts from the National Highway Company in the past year as the chief cause of the situation. Its general director Ján Ďurišin disagreed, however, stating that individual projects have been prepared, and if money is found, some 20 tenders could be launched by 2020.