Sme rodina (We Are Family) party leader Boris Kollar is no longer insisting that 25,000 new rental flats should be built every year, the leaders of the future governing coalition said at a news conference following their meeting with economic experts at the Budgetary Responsibility Council on Monday. They want to see the private sector more engaged in this project. The model of financing proposed by Sme rodina isn't feasible at the moment. The party proposed setting some state companies apart from the state budget rules so that they don't deepen the deficit with their investment loans. "If we want to follow the Austrian model, we'll have to wait for Eurostat tests to be carried out in June and then in December,"said Kollar. "We'll obtain the final answer as to whether or not we can take this route," he said.
Meanwhile the leaders of the four parties want to change legislation in order to raise interest among private investors in constructing rental flats. According to SaS (Freedom and Solidarity) leader Richard Sulik, this will require reducing the period of depreciation from 40 to 20 years, allowing the creation of real estate funds, enabling pension fund management companies to invest and simplifying construction proceedings.
Future Prime Minister Igor Matovič thinks it's the state's role to help where this isn't advantageous for private entities. According to him, the state has options for supporting local governments in building rental flatsor for directly constructing such flats via investment companies. "This might satisfy demand for the key professions that we lack, such as teachers in Bratislava. Nothing terrible would happen if the state decided to build 5,000 rental flats in Bratislava and provide them to teachers or nurses," added Matovič.
