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Summary
Foto: archív
Excerpt from an Interview with the
Minister of Transport, Construction and
Regional Development of the Slovak
Republic, Ján Počiatek
■■ The issue when the City of Bratislava
will be connected with the City of Košice in
a highway across Slovakia still remains to be
open. Any of the published deadlines for the
Bratislava – Košice highway completion was
not met so far. Mr Fico, the Prime Minister
called for the 2010 year, the then Transport
Minister Ján Figeľ scheduled the 2017 year. Is
it realistic to keep the year announced by the
then Government?
No one can outline the exact date
for the highway completion these days.
The only thing I can confirm is that the
deadline announced by the then Cabinet
is not realistic. I cannot tell you the exact
year of the said highway completion.
Environmental survey reviewing of D1
Turany – Hubová section is subjected to
the European Commission assessment.
The said D1 highway section is part of the
highway completion between the cities of
Bratislava and Košice. Therefore, it would
be irresponsible to give you any deadline
for the highway completion and to publish
it openly. However, I may say that we will
neither omit nor underestimate anything
under the construction preparation stage
in order to push agenda forward to its
entirety.
■■ Thus, the most important Slovakia’s
highway completion depends on Brussels,
doesn’t it?
Absolutely. We will be able to deliver the
date assumption after the environmental
issue related to town of Martin vicinity is
solved out. I can see the solution optimistic
and within a few months we will be
enabled to say the prospects regarding the
pending section.
■■ The issue of financing the highways is
widely-spoken about these days. What model
do you prefer to stick with?
The matter is the Euro funds financing;
it is obvious. It is the least costly mode
of financing not burdening the public
finance.
■■ Have you been considering the option to
spend the Public Private Partnership (PPP)
resources on highways construction?
Prior to stick with PPP projects aimed
at financing it is a must to use the options
given by the operational programmes
via Euro funds and then the supporting
resources can be taken into account to be
considered both loans and PPP. Today’s
real threat is that Euro funds of the
programmatic period designed for roads
don’t need to be spent as there is not
sufficient amount of projects developed.
I have been taken over the issue from
the then Cabinet and we have to deal
with it until it is solved out. To avoid
such ups and downs we have intensified
the preparation of highway construction
projects designed on Euro Funds spending
out of programmatic period for the 2014
to 2020 years. We make every effort not to
face the situation when there is money but
there is a lack of projects developed. We
are in a frequent contact communicating
with the European Commission in order
to facilitate procedure of approving the
projects in Brussels and to make it smooth.
The then Cabinet did not always succeed
to meet those achievements.
In financing both road and highway
infrastructure there can be further
resources warmly met including private
funds, id est PPP projects. However, the
terms of financing are utmost important
as those must be favourable not only for
private creditors but also for the State.
Excerpt from an Interview with the State
Secretary of the Ministry of Transport,
Construction and Regional Development
of the Slovak Republic, František Palko
■■ A few weeks ago you held the talks with
the Organization for Economic Cooperation
and Development (OECD) representatives
discussing the possibilities how to accelerate
the EU Funds spending and prepare the
forthcoming 2014 – 2020 financing term.
What outlines were presented for Slovakia
by the OECD?
The talks occurred to be fruitful. We have
been informing the OECD representatives
about the adopted measures in order to
make the EU structural funds and the EU
Cohesion Fund spending accelerated. The
matter was to project the coordination
mechanism for the euro funds at the
level of the State Secretaries in the form
of reallocating the funds in the benefit
of those operational programmes of the
favourable absorption capacity and added
social value, or, they are solving the issue
of unemployment of small businesses
and back-up of small and medium-size
enterprises. The OECD representatives have
assessed the measures and concurrently
recommended Slovakia’s focusing on
“the intelligent specialisation” primarily
in the fields of competitive advantage to
the extent of new programmatic term in
compliance with the EU strategy.
■■ The National System of Transport
Information should be part of the EU common
intelligent transport system according to
Brussels envisaged planning and it is the EU
wish to back it up financially. Does Slovakia
already deal with solving the intelligent
transport system?
We are on it. The presupposition is
that the said system could be financed by
us under the forthcoming programmatic
period 2014 – 2020. We intend to review the
scope, structure, inevitability and amount
of costs designed for huge Slovakia-wide
National System of Transport Information.
Costs foreseen for the project developed
are amounting to 150 million euro and the
assumption covers the system to its entirety.
Foto: archív
68 Časopis na prezentáciu Slovenska v Európskej únii