- The Government of the Slovak Republic must immediately request a vote of confidence after exceeding the debt limit.
- Without undue delay means immediate government action without undue inaction.
- Parliament must decide on the government’s request for confidence without unnecessary delay.
- The obligation to apply for trust arises once a year after the debt is published.
The Government of the Slovak Republic must ask the members of the National Council of the Slovak Republic for a vote of confidence immediately after finding out that the indebtedness limit established in the constitutional law has been exceeded. This follows from the interpretation of the Constitutional Court (ÚS) of the Slovak Republic to the Act on Budgetary Responsibility. TASR was informed about this by ÚS spokesperson Martina Ferencová.
In its interpretation, the court pointed out that the wording “without unnecessary delay” means “immediate active action of the Government of the Slovak Republic aimed at submitting an application taking into account the necessary procedure which the government of the Slovak Republic is obliged to follow, without elements of unjustified inaction”. He pointed out that the Constitution of the Slovak Republic and the Constitutional Act on Budgetary Responsibility itself do not provide for a period of 30 days.
According to the interpretation of the court, the parliament also has the obligation to discuss the request for a vote of confidence and decide on it without unnecessary delay. The court also pointed out that the obligation to ask for confidence in the government arises again after the next publication of the amount of the debt by the European Commission for the previous calendar year. This obligation can arise only once in a calendar year.
A group of opposition MPs asked for an interpretation of the law. According to the petitioners, the actions of the government, which did not ask the parliament at its session from November 25 to December 12, 2025 for a vote of confidence, “represent a violation of the principle of parliamentary democracy, the principle of political responsibility of the executive power and the principle of the rule of law in their material meaning.” The European Statistical Office Eurostat issued a report on October 21, 2025, according to which Slovakia’s public debt was 59.7 percent of GDP.
In their submission to the ÚS, the MPs pointed out that, according to the law on the debt brake, in such a case the government will ask the NR SR for a vote of confidence. “If the government, which has been notified of the fact that the public debt limit has been exceeded through official Eurostat data, ignores or circumvents this obligation, it is not only a violation of a specific legal order, but an intervention in the very essence of parliamentary democracy. Such an action means that the government is consciously avoiding political control by the parliament at the moment when this control is most necessary from a constitutional point of view,” states the submission to the ÚS.
