Richard Sulík (; born 12 January 1968) is a Slovak politician, economist and businessman. He is the leader of the political party Freedom and Solidarity and served as Deputy Prime Minister for Economy and Minister of Economy in Government of Slovakia led by Eduard Heger. Sulik and his party resigned from the government on August, 31 and early September.
Life
Born in 1968 in Czechoslovakia, Sulík emigrated in 1980 with his parents to West Germany, where they lived in the city of Pforzheim. In 1987 he went to Munich to study physics and later economics at the Ludwig Maximilian University. When the borders were reopened right after the end of the cold war, Sulík returned in 1991 to Czechoslovakia. While still a student at the University of Economics in Bratislava, he ran the company FaxCOPY.
When he graduated in 2003, Sulík was working as a special advisor of the Slovak Minister of Finance Ivan Miklos, whom he convinced to take his master thesis as a blueprint for the 2004 Slovak tax reform. This tax reform, introducing a 19% flat tax on all types of income and a 19% value added tax, was believed to be the single most important reform leading to the large increase of foreign investment in Slovakia and the economic boom period. After the reform, he remained on the ministry's advisory board.
Between 2004 and 2006, Sulìk was CEO of OLO's municipal waste disposal company. He then returned as special advisor to the Ministry of Finance under Ján Počiatek to further evolve the tax system. In 2009, Sulík founded the political party Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) which he leads as Chairman. In 2010 he replaced Pavol Paška as the Speaker of Parliament.
Financial crisis
On 14 September 2011, Richard Sulik, the Chair (Speaker) of the National Council and chair of his party, which is member of the European Conservatives and Reformists, the fifth largest political party of the European Parliament, announced that he would not vote for an increase of the funds for the European Financial Stability Facility, believing that allowing Greece to go bankrupt would be a better solution for the rest of the Eurozone member countries.
On 11 October 2011, his party did not vote for the European Financial Stability Facility enlargement even though Prime Minister Iveta Radičová tied the vote with a confidence vote for the government, thus toppling the Slovak government.
Refugee crisis
A former migrant himself, Sulík has strongly opposed the acceptance of subsidiarily protected migrants from the Middle East, and has expressed anti-Islamic views, stating that "I don't want to live in a Europe where more Muslims are born than Christians".
Political developments after 2020
After the 2020 Slovak parliamentary election, in which SaS received 6% of the vote the party was invited by the Designated Prime Minister Igor Matovič, chair of the OĽaNO party, which won the election with 25%, to negotiations about the new coalition government. Sulík was personally promised the Ministry of Economy, and his party was to receive the Ministry of Education along with the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs. To ensure no one was bullied within the new Coalition, a Coalition Council, where weekly meetings of leaders of Coalition parties would occur. Soon the new coalition government was plagued by new scandals. It was revealed the Prime Minister at the time Igor Matovič faked his graduation thesis and so did the new Speaker and leader of Coalition party Sme rodina. They both were dared to resign, neither did, with Matovič saying he will resign once he has accomplished what he had promised to his voters before the election.