Bratislava - As the European Union prepares later this week to deal with environmental issues at a summit in Brussels, Slovak President Ivan Gasparovic on Wednesday appointed Jozef Medved as his country's new environment minister. Medved, 59, a university-level teacher with expertise in finance, is the fourth environment minister to be named in the three years of a ruling coalition by Prime Minister Robert Fico's social-democratic Smer party and two smaller nationalist parties. The new minister has no party affiliation.
Medved's three predecessors were all nominated by the SNS, the Slovak National Party. Fico dismissed them after corruption and finance scandals. Because of these scandals, Fico abrogated the SNS's nomination right and took it upon himself to propose Medved.
The opposition and media have accused several SNS environment ministers of damaging Slovakia's reputation through non-transparent trading of carbon dioxide credits.
In addition, the Ministry of Construction and Regional Development, also led by the SNS, has allegedly diverted EU funding to favoured companies. Slovakia therefore has had to repay some of the EU money it received.
