"Slovakia will lose millions that could have been used by scientists and universities", stated the opposition OĽaNO party MP Veronika Remišová at a press conference on Wednesday. According to Remišová, Slovakia will lose €81 million due to failures in drawing EU funds. "The drawing of money in all operational programmes is poor, but in Science and Research it's disastrous," said Remišová, adding that only 9.7 percent of the total sum since 2014 had been drawn from the Science and Research Operational Programme. She also pointed to the last-minute drawing on a massive scale and support for meaningless projects.
The Education Ministry has been meeting all tasks in the field of setting the operational framework and announcing calls, stated the ministry's communications department in reaction to statements made by opposition MP Veronika Remišová earlier in the day. The ministry argues that the new framework for drawing funds has been approved by the European Commission and validated by an audit body. Moreover, as many as 66 calls worth more than €1.7 billion have been announced as part of the Research and Innovations Operational Programme. "By the end of June, the ministry plans to announce five more calls and a national project that will mean that 100 percent of the funds in the R&D Operational Programme worth €2.2 billion will be allocated," claims the ministry in its response, adding that constant attacks do not help when it comes to drawing EU funds for science. "This atmosphere discourages institutions from filing projects and assessors from taking part in the assessment process, thus reducing absorption capacity within the operational programme," stated the ministry.
