House Vice-chair Peter Ziga (Hlas-SD), who is tasked with heading Parliament on a temporary basis, on Tuesday ended the special House session on the no-confidence motion in the government without Parliament even voting on the opposition's proposal, as the submitters took it back.
The opposition has already collecting the signatures necessary to initiate another special session.
The special session on no-confidence motion in Robert Fico's (Smer-SD) government started on Tuesday morning with speeches by PS leader Michal Simecka and Fico. After some discussuion it continued in classified mode at the Premier’s request. He subsequently presented a report containing classified information at a non-public session.
Slovak Parliament during the special session on Tuesday.
Simecka pointed out that once the coalition made the original session on Tuesday secret due to Fico's decision to read out a report by the Slovak Intelligence Service (SIS) with confidential information, all opposition legislators responded by leaving the chamber and withdrawing the no-confidence motion [so as to make it possible under the Rules of Procedure to resubmit it without any delay -ed.note].
In Simecka's view, the governing coalition thwarted the session because it doesn't want arguments of the opposition to be voiced publicly. "If memory serves, nothing of this kind ever happened in the history of the Slovak Parliament before," he declared, adding that the coalition feared the debate and didn't want its own failures to surface into the spotlight.
During the public part of his speech Fico announced that the government will soon propose constitutional changes on issues such as the recognition of two genders, the national education program, and child adoptions.
"The national education programme must align with the principles and values of the Constitution. Anything beyond that will need to be approved by parents," said Fico. "It's our duty to state in the Constitution that Slovakia recognises only two genders, male and female," he added. The third issue to be addressed in the Constitution is child adoption.
The Premier also stressed in Parliament that there's never been a discussion regarding Slovakia leaving the European Union (EU) and NATO, but according to him, the country faces challenges that require a response.
In his social media post, Fico sent a message to the opposition that another special emergency House session on the ouster of the government won't happen unless the opposition secures a majority in Parliament. "If you believe that you submit another motion to oust the government tomorrow and expect me to ask the government and the governing coalition to accommodate your whims, then you're dead wrong," he stated.
Source: TASR
