First names for MEP candidates known
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This summer, elections to the European Parliament will be held. Political parties are gradually publishing the names of their candidates.
Number one on the list for SMER, the largest political party in Slovakia, should be Monika Beňová, who has been in the Europarliament for 19 years and will run for the 5th time.
The party's deputy chairman Ľuboš Blaha will also be on the list. “Getting back to leftist roots – welfare state, equality, much better salaries, far better conditions for work,” he said.
Hlas, the second largest party in the Slovak government, has not put forward any names yet.
The third party in the coalition, SNS, failed to get into the European Parliament twice in the past and therefore, says chairman Andrej Danko, they cannot afford a third time. That is why he will lead the candidate list himself. The EU faces several challenges, he said: “External borders protection, common migration policy, clear rules for corporations and how to tax them.”
The biggest winner of the last round, in 2019, was Progressive Slovakia. But fraction leader Michal Simecka moved from Brussels to Bratislava ahead of the national elections. He will not run as Euro MP. But he said the party will nominate a candidate this month or next. “What I can already say is that it will be gender-balanced list of candidates similarly to the one we had for the Slovak parliament.”
Another opposition party, KDH, will publish the leading candidate in February. Both its current MEPs are interested. President Milan Majerský: “Considering the fact that we have almost 6,500 members, it is not easy to appoint only some for this list of candidates.”
The founder and the current chairman of the SaS party, Richard Sulík, plans to return to the European Parliament, and MEP Eugen Jurzyca will be his number two. “The European Union is a good project,” Sulik said. “However, if it is to be successful and working, and working even better, then it needs to be reformed.”
The deadline for submitting names of candidates is in March. (RTVS)
