Prime Minister Robert Fico (Smer) announced early Friday evening that he is giving President Petr Pellegrini a proposal to dismiss Deputy Prime Minister Petr Kmece – a Hlas nominee who was responsible for the Recovery Plan in Fico’s fourth government.
“As Prime Minister of the Slovak Republic, I submit to the President of the Slovak Republic a proposal to dismiss the Deputy Prime Minister of the Slovak Republic for the recovery plan, Mr. Kmece. I will not allow this government to be associated with doubts in the management of public funds,” wrote Robert Fico.
The chairman of Hlas and the Minister of the Interior, Matúš Šutaj Eštok, also reacted to the situation, who stated in a statement that Petr Klec offered him his resignation already on Friday. “The vote acted without the need for a public gesture by the Prime Minister, which – I believe – was not related to the events in Poprad. The decision was made to resign. We consider the same approach to be the norm and assume that it will be applied by all members of the government, including prime ministerial ministers,” he told the head of the Slovak government.
Support of a company without employees
The Slovak government subsidy scheme, which was intended to support science and research, raised a storm of criticism after DBC Slovakia, which is connected to the Hlas party, ended up among the supported companies. It was established only in 2024, last year it achieved sales of only 13 thousand euros, yet it receives almost 1.5 million euros (about 37 million CZK) from the state for biotechnological research.
Opposition politicians from SaS and Progressive Slovakia call the choice of DBC Slovakia scandalous, because the company has no employees, contact information or history of research projects – it is said to be based only in a terraced building in Bratislava’s Vrakuňa district.
The owner of the company, Pavel Kazár, also works abroad and responded to media inquiries with dissatisfaction with public criticism. His foreign American company Digital Blood Corporation actually owns several patents for blood research, which State Secretary Alena Sabelová relies on in defense of the biotechnology project. However, these patents are not formally related to the DBC Slovakia project in Slovakia, because it is an American entity.
A total of 230 million was distributed
The call for support of biotechnological and robotics projects, in which DBC Slovakia also succeeded, distributed a total of 230 million euros. It is criticized that the conditions did not require previous research experience or minimum turnover. Therefore, other small, non-established companies also received money – often allegedly connected to the government party Hlas, which has an influence on the distribution of subsidies.
In the meantime, government politicians also questioned the subsidies – the head of Hlas, Matúš Šutaj Eštok, instructed Kmece to immediately suspend and review the entire process. However, part of the contracts with the beneficiaries have already been signed and there may be disputes about their eventual cancellation.
