Archive of articles - June 1998

Letter to the Editor: Fishing for visas in the "Slovak sea of bureaucracy"

Eye on Vienna

Multiplex planned beside Incheba

A new multifunctional complex, offering 86 sizeable apartments, nearly 6,000 square meters of business space and a 3,000-square-meter parking lot, is to be finished within the next 12 months on a site beside Incheba, the well-known exhibition center on the south side of the Danube River.Having first appeared on urban planning maps in 1990, the center already started construction once, but stopped due to lack of finances. The idea of finishing it was suggested in 1997 by Renos, a real estate and construction company which is the owner of the complex."The complex is in a great location," said Vladimír Kristl of R-Consult, the company that provides marketing and counselling services for the project. "It is close to the center, close to Petržalka, close to the highways, and that is in my opinion its greatest advantage."

World Cup '98 produces much excitement, few surprises

The football world's premiere event, the World Cup, opened on June 10 at stadia around France. A little less than a week later, the tournaments first winners and losers are preparing to do battle with their next first-round opponents. The Slovak Spectator has prepared a state-of-play report that assesses the strengths and weaknesses of the tournament's 32 entries, and predicts second-round match ups.Some things just never change. Scotland's legendary bad luck - this time an own-goal that decided the opening match with Brazil - continued to dog the men with the whitest, skinniest legs in the game. The Italians are still masters of the dramatic dive after the clean challenge - the full somersault, double gainer plunge followed by 20 seconds of screaming, writhing, bogus agony. Keep trying, guys. Belgium, as always, plays the most boring football in the world.

Annual money supply up 9% in April

SAX downfall continues on blue chip losses

Market developmentsThe equity market continued its downfall during the two weeks ending June 10, reaching several consecutive historical lows. The SAX index fell on June 10 to a new all-time low of 109.78, breaking yet another critical mark of 110. The decline was spurred by falling blue chip prices, with Nafta and Slovnaft falling to new historical lows of 518 Sk and 650 Sk, respectively.With the holiday season and general elections approaching, no impetus exists for a reversal of the current trend. Nevertheless, almost all central and eastern European stock markets experienced a decline in the week ending June 5. The Russian market has lost 49% in dollar terms since the beginning of this year. The Slovak market has lost 39%, while the Czech and Hungarian markets have reported only marginal declines over the same period.

Community Grapevine

Jazz lovers should pay a visit to Peter Cardarelli, an American jazz musician making the rounds of Slovakia. Many may already have seen his great jazz concert which was held June 6 in Piešťany at the Café Grand. Besides Cardarelli, the Czech František Raba and Slovaks Gabriel Jonáš and Oldo Petráš put on a show to celebrate the launch of their new CD - Mister Knight. Ralph Johnson, the US Ambassador, was also present to pour champagne on the CD. The CD features live concerts recorded in Studio S in Bratislava in April 1998. The music is be-bop jazz, very relaxing easy on the ears.Cardarelli, a professor in the Applied Music Program at the University of Massachusetts-Boston, currently lives in Slovakia and plays with Slovak jazz musicians such as Andrej Šeban or Peter Lipa.

SP acquires majority IRB stake

Slovak health care system faces financial crunch

Slovakia's health care system is on the brink of crisis, and the root of the evil is money. Health care providers, many of them deeply in debt, blame health insurance companies for their insolvent state. For their part, insurers blame employers for not forking over money deducted for health care from employee salaries. And both providers and insurers say the Slovak state is not fulfilling its financial obligations, plunging the entire system further in debt.In the center of this mess are hospital patients, who have lately been getting a close-up look at the real dimensions of the crisis.

Tesco records 4.2bn Sk turnover in '97

Commercial TV Markíza plays favorites, wins trust

Pavol Rusko, General Director of the private Markíza TV station, says he has no political ambitions - at least for the time being. In less than two years, Rusko has built Markíza into both a Slovak media colossus and an important counterweight to government-friendly Slovak Television (STV). But the speed of Markíza's growth, while dramatically increasing Rusko's reputation as a canny media baron, has also left him vulnerable to the siren song of his other great love - politics.Not everyone is comfortable with the idea that the co-owner of Slovakia's most influential media outlet is a political animal. The Slovak Radio and Television Council last month issued a statement accusing Markíza of gross favoritism towards particular politicians and parties, while Rusko's own partner, co-owner Silvia Volzová, has questioned his objectivity.

Danish Ecco to employ 1,700 in Martin region

Although Danish shoe-maker Ecco hasn't even started building its new plant in the central Slovak town of Martin, it is determined to launch production by October. Martin municipal leaders are waiting breathlessly to see if Ecco can keep the deadline; having sold 80,000 square meters of land to the company for a symbolic one Slovak crown, city officials have much at stake, not least the 1,700 employees Ecco has promised to hire.John Svane Hansen, Ecco Project Manager, said the project was the first Danish manufacturing investment in Slovakia, and that it would entail expenditures of about 45 million Danish crowns ($6.8 million). In the next two years, he said, the company intended to invest another $7.4 million.

Parents keep kids at home to protest education law proposal

Protesting against the recently proposed bill on minority education, ethnic Hungarian parents in Komárno, Moldova and Galanta districts decided not to let their kids go to school on June 12."We want our children to learn the Slovak language properly, but we want them to remain Hungarian," said Ladislav Ďurkovský, one of the leaders of the Association of Hungarian Parents in Slovakia. "The state wants them to lose their national identity.""We want to give these kids proper education," reacted Víťazoslav Moric, a leading member of the right-wing Slovak National Party (SNS). "[But] honestly speaking, I do not care about the Hungarian children the least bit. I care about this state.

Municipal election law proposal angers Slovak town mayors

Slovakia's town and village elders say they are sure of one thing: the central government's proposal to amend the country's municipal election law is unfair, unclear and unconstitutional.Thunder from the passage of a new national election law on May 20 continues to reverberate around the country, but organizations like the Association of Slovak Towns and Villages (ZMOS) and the Union of Towns and Villages (ÚMO) have begun to draw public attention to the municipal election proposal, which is scheduled to be submitted to a final vote during Parliament's July session.

Slovakia, 1996-97: A Global Report

There comes a point at which foreigners living in Slovakia lose their sense of social alienation and begin to accept officious doorkeepers, slovenly waiters and obnoxious bureaucrats as important Slovak cultural artefacts. At the same moment, they start to wish they understood more of what goes on around them in politics, economics and society.As of May, 1998, foreigners living and working in Slovakia finally have access to a book that explains Slovak current events and recent history in plain English. Slovakia, 1996-1997: A Global Report on the State of Society, is a collection of well-written and clearly-presented essays on everything from minority rights and privatization to media and religion.

Minority languages and minority education

On January 1, 1996, a controversial new Law on the State Language (270/1995) took effect, requiring the use of Slovak in virtually all aspects of public life. Hungarian leaders had opposed the law from its origins as a Ministry of Culture proposal back in the spring of 1995, and in May 1996, deputies from the Hungarian parties and the Christian Democratic Movement requested a ruling on its constitutionality from the Constitutional Court. The Court's ruling, which did not come until autumn 1997, rejected most of the deputies' claims, but upheld their most important assertion: that Hungarians do have the right to use their own language in official state contacts.

Year-on-year inflation hits 30-month high

SDK presents alternative political program

The strongest opposition grouping, the Slovak Democratic Coalition (SDK), introduced on May 10 a fundamental alternative to the current government of Vladimír Mečiar. The new program aims to crack an uncompromising whip on the Mafia, to revive the Slovak economy by encouraging housing projects, and to regain the position Slovakia used to have in EU and NATO integration processes.But political scientists say that the SDK's program is not yet well enough defined to merit comment, and argue that personalities rather than policies will decide the results of September's national elections

Budget deficit jumps, but Finance Ministry calm

The state budget deficit jumped by more than two billion Sk ($57.97 million) over one month, but a Finance Ministry official said the ministry was playing it cool and expected to meet all fiscal policy targets set for 1998.The state budget recorded a deficit of 2.406 billion Sk at the end of May, up from a 264 million shortfall at the end of April, the ministry announced on June 1. However, the ministry added, the state budget development was in line with full year plans and there was no need to revise its main targets despite a considerable shortfall acceleration in May."The fiscal deficit at the end of May represents an appropriate portion of the full year target," said Juraj Macejka, director of the ministry's state account department. "There were no negative swings in terms of revenues or expenditures and the budget is developing in line with plans."