The leaders of the potential future coalition parties met for the very first time on Thursday. Igor Matovic, Richard Sulik, Boris Kollar and Andrej Kiska discussed the joint government after President Zuzana Caputova tasked OLaNO leader with forming the new Cabinet.
Later on Thursday, Matovic gave information on some of the plans the potential partners had agreed upon. One of their priorities will be greenlighting any expenditure exceeding one million euros entertained by any government ministry in the future by the Value for Money Office (UHP) first. This will also apply to secret projects. The head of OLaNO further said that he would initiate a meeting at the Slovak central bank on Monday (March 9) about proposals to undertake the mass construction of rental flats, which is the programme priority of We Are Family. In addition, Matovic also invited top economists from Slovakia and Austria to know whether such a proposal has potential and whether it is possible to obtain funding for such public investments.
Aside from promising transparent governance, Matovic also promised openness towards the opposition. The potential coalition leaders also agreed on setting up a fund to support investigative journalism, but the deal on it is yet to be fleshed out in the following days. Kollar added that the four leaders had concurred that the already existing social benefits would not be scrapped by the government. Freedom and Solidarity party leader Richard Sulik added that they also saw the need to improve the business environment.
Both Sulik and We Are Family chair Boris Kollar welcomed the decision by the 'For the People' party to join the official talks on the future potential coalition. Ahead of their meeting, the For the People party leader Andrej Kiska declared concerns over the ratio in dividing ministries among potential coalition parties. According to the original proposal on the table, eight ministries are supposed to go to OLaNO, three to We Are Family and two each to Freedom and Solidarity and 'For the People'.
