Regarding the long-term sustainability of public finances, the Supreme Audit Office considers the current pension system a significant risk. As expenditure on old-age pensions will reach a record level of more than EUR 10 billion next year, the state will have to support the Social Insurance Institution with up to EUR 2.75 billion. In 2022, the state's contribution to the Social Insurance Institution stood at EUR 103 million; in 2023, already at EUR 1.16 billion, and this year, it has reached EUR 2.72 billion. More than 920 million euros will go to pay the 13th pension. The SAO considers it necessary to set more targeted criteria for its payment. Early retirement pensions are also a significant burden on the budget, with their volume also reaching record figures. The cost of early retirement pensions will be almost four times higher next year than in 2023, reaching EUR 560 million. "Slovakia has historically the lowest unemployment rate, and this is associated with a significant shortage of skilled labour in the labour market. Today, more than 113 thousand people from abroad are already filling a critical gap in the national labour market. These figures should prompt the competent institutions to adjust the rules on early retirement fundamentally," says President Ľ. Andrassy.

The state budget will spend almost EUR 10 billion on health care next year, an increase of 7.8%. However, the share of personal expenses in the total expenditure of healthcare institutions has risen significantly in recent years from 48% in 2018 to 62%, while the performance of individual hospitals still needs to reach the pre-industrial level. In a recent audit of state-run hospitals, national auditors found that in recent years, an average of 80% of revenues from insurers have gone to personnel costs, which ultimately come at the expense of operations and the scale of healthcare delivery.

The SAO has repeatedly pointed out that the 13 largest state hospitals have a debt of more than €1 billion, almost half of which is owed to the Social Insurance Institution. Another serious risk is the debt of nearly 30 million owed to the National Transfusion Service, which is thus falling into secondary insolvency and the hospitals are endangering the operation of the transfusion centres. Hospital buildings' modernisation and investment debt is estimated at several hundred million euros. For example, the university hospital in Bratislava's Ružinov district already has 84% wear and tear on its buildings. There is a shortage of 850 general practitioners for adults and for children and adolescents. Another fundamental problem is that the state pays 3.5 times less in health levies on behalf of its insured citizens than the economically active population. While the active population pays an average of EUR 215 per month, the state pays only EUR 60 for its insured, and more than half (56%) of the state's insured are insured.

In the field of education, the SAO draws attention to the fact that the government is not fulfilling its commitment to annual salary increases for employees in this sector. Teachers' salaries have not been indexed in 2024, and wages in the Slovak education sector will not be indexed in 2025 either. There is even a risk that the actual salaries of education employees will fall by almost 5 %. Teachers' real wages will fall to the level of 2022. The area of teaching assistants in kindergartens is alarming, as we are in last place in Europe. Capital expenditure on scientific research is expected to amount to a negligible EUR 37,000 next year.

Even in the environmental sphere, our country is not fulfilling its European commitments to connect every agglomeration with a sewerage network of over 2,000 inhabitants. We still need to achieve the commitment made in 2015, as only 53 out of 356 agglomerations have reached the set threshold for connecting to the public sewerage system. Public sewerage is not available for more than 1.5 million inhabitants of Slovakia. The SAO's audit activity has long drawn attention to the modernisation debt in the water sector, which amounts to EUR 10 billion. The state's regulatory policy does not contribute to solving the situation, and there is a lack of sustainable financing for water companies whose shareholders are municipalities and cities.

According to the Audit Office, a new, significant risk is the increase in poverty or social exclusion, especially in the regions of eastern and central Slovakia. According to the National Reform Programme of the Slovak Republic, the government aims to reduce the level of social exclusion to 13.6 % in 2030. The poverty risk rate is 17.6 %, higher than a decade ago. "In the last three years, more and more people have fallen into poverty, with up to 940,000 people at risk. Social poverty particularly affects young families with many children, single-parent families, and people with disabilities. The most serious risks are in the Prešov, Banská Bystrica and Košice regions, where the risks of poverty can negatively affect every fourth citizen," says Ľ. Andrassy.

"Slovakia's investment and development potential in the coming years will be based primarily on resources coming from European Union funds," says the chairman of the Slovak auditors. Despite the simplifications in the fourth programming period, absorption is even slower than in the past. More than €12.8 billion is allocated in European funds. Still, in the new programming period, which is now in its fourth year, we have only managed to draw down €150 million by the autumn of this year, representing 1.2% of the allocation. To avoid losing unrepeatable resources from European funds, we have until the end of next year to draw down EUR 1.4 billion, approximately ten times the amount we have actively used over the last 46 months. Not to mention Slovakia's additional EUR 1.2 billion available from the Recovery and Resilience Plan under the individual chapters. As of September of this year, EUR 272 million in funding has been made available to beneficiaries of the Recovery Plan so far.

According to the national auditors, the weakening of the analytical units within the central state bodies jeopardises the fulfilment of one of the important objectives set out in the Law on Budgetary Rules, according to which the Slovak government is to process a review of half of all expenditure in selected areas of public policies within a four-year period. The President of the SAO points out that "if there are no functional analytical units, the normal structures of the ministries will not be able to produce such expert analyses. We also consider the weakening of the position of the analytical unit of the Ministry of Finance in the assessment of large investment projects to be a negative factor related to budgeting in the context of efficient and effective use of funds."