Robert Fico - Domestic Policy

Domestic Policy

A large part of Fico's election victory in 2010 was attributed to his loud criticism of the previous right-wing government's economic, tax, social, pension and legislative reforms. The reforms were generally perceived as very positive and successful by such international bodies as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank or the OECD, however they negatively affected certain segments of the population, particularly low wage earners, the unemployed, and welfare and other social assistance recipients.

While in opposition, and primarily during the election campaign, Fico vowed to reverse and cancel the majority of these reforms, however, upon taking office he adopted a more cautious approach. Slovakia was starting to fulfill the Maastricht criteria required for Euro currency adoption, which it completed on 1 January 2009.

The most successful reforms Fico introduced were to establish some reasonable standards in how many times employees may be kept on as temporary workers instead of being given permanent contracts. Under the one-sided, pro-employer legislation of the Mikulas Dzurinda government an employer could (and many did) keep new staff as temps and create a two-tier workforce. Slovakia's labor policies are generally in tune with most other EU states. One of few modifications Fico's government did implement was a slight modification to the unusual flat tax system introduced by the previous government in a way that slightly decreased or eradicated a tax-free part of income for higher income earners. A lower value added tax was imposed on medications and books, though in spite of his election promises Fico failed to extend this onto a wider group of products such as groceries. Among the measures were controversial legislative changes which effectively banned private health insurance companies from generating profit. As a result Slovakia is being sued by several foreign shareholders of local health insurers through international arbitrations. In 2007, Fico unsuccessfully tried to regulate retail food prices, an unprecedented effort in a generally free market European union.

In August 2008, Fico threatened the foreign shareholders of a local gas distributor SPP, the French Gaz de France and the German E.ON, with nationalization and seizure of their ownership shares in a dispute over retail gas prices.

In 2010, Fico faced large scale protests and a blockade of major cities by truckers upset about badly implemented tolls on the highways. Truckers demanded that fuel prices be lowered to compensate for the tolls. Fico initially refused to speak with representatives of the truckers, saying he would not "be blackmailed", but a few days later capitulated. The cuts given to truckers will amount to about €100,000,000.