Besides personnel changes, the Smer-SD party convention also featured other topics. The party leader and Prime Minister Robert Fico informed about embedding the right to a minimum wage, an upper retirement age and the existence of the first, second and third pension pillars in the Slovak legal system. According to him, preparations for amending the Slovak Constitution have been launched in response to the adoption of the European Pillar of Social Rights by EU leaders in Gothenburg in November.
Fico noted that if the current setting of the retirement law in Slovakia is maintained, the retirement age in some two decades will stand at 65 or even more. "The notion that people in Slovakia should work until they reach 70, considering the conditions in which they worked in the past, is unacceptable for me. That's why I want to find an agreement in Parliament to stipulate an upper retirement age in the Constitution," said Fico.
Meanwhile, he is determined to finalise measures from the current social package, including increasing bonuses for night and weekend work, despite certain resistance by employers. Nonetheless, the prime minister stated that he was ready to fine-tune the measures in talks with businesses over the next two months.
One "huge problem" that needs to be tackled is the emerging lack of skilled labour force in Slovakia. According to Robert Fico, the country cannot afford to lose its competitiveness and attractiveness for foreign investment. The Prime Minister pledged to present a set of measures in January to deal with the issue. This should include retraining the unemployed, and when this pool is exhausted, the Government will be ready to cut the red tape for imports of labour from abroad, concluded Robert Fico.
