Slovakia gets new government

Slovakia's new cabinet was sworn into office by President Ivan Gasparovic in a ceremony at the presidential palace in Bratislava on Wednesday.

Prime Minister Robert Fico, who led Slovakia into the eurozone in 2009, returned to the job after a two-year absence. The ceremony followed a landslide victory for his left-of-center Smer party.

This allowed him to fill all 14 of the cabinet posts from within the ranks of Smer, making this the first single-party government in Slovakia since it broke off from the Czech Republic in 1993.

After the ceremony, the 47-year-old Fico told reporters that one of his country's top priorities would be to wrestle the country's deficit to below the eurozone's ceiling of three percent of gross domestic product.

"The government must, in the interest of the country and also because of a risk of international sanctions, respect a commitment to cut the deficit to below three percent in 2013," Fico said.

Slovakia's deficit was five percent of GDP in 2011 and is predicted to come in at 4.4 percent this year.

Fico also promised that any austerity measures his government introduces would not place an unfair burden on those who are most vulnerable in society.

"We will make every effort to prevent fiscal consolidation from threatening the living standards of the poor. We want to protect them and expect more solidarity from the stronger ones," the prime minister said.

Fico's government replaces the center-right coalition led by Iveta Radicova, which collapsed last October in a row over the beefing up of a eurozone bailout fund.

pfd/tm (Reuters, AFP)