Archive of articles - November 1998, page 7

Media watchdog tells STV Council to mind its own business

New British Ambassador meets Mečiar

Municipal elections planned for December

Slovakia's municipal elections, originally scheduled for November 13-14, will most likely be held on December 19, the earliest date by which the unconstitutional current election law can be amended. Both municipal officials and legal analysts have urged the country's new government to stick to the new date and hold the crucial elections before the end of the year.According to an October 15 Constitutional Court verdict, six of seven provisions in the current municipal election law violate the constitution.The four parties of the former opposition that formed the country's new government on October 30 agreed to press ahead urgently with modifying the constitution so that elections can go ahead. The necessary changes would require prolonging the terms in office for incumbent local representatives, as well as shortening the period necessary for submission of new candidate lists.

Around Slovakia

Fatal accidents in mountainsBears thrill Tatras' hotel staffMr. Baldhead competitionKilling Kinder chocolate eggMost illegal migrants come from YugoslaviaBurglars in Ikea furniture store

Volkswagen Bratislava puts out over 100,000 cars as of mid-October

Trade balance deficit hits 55 billion Sk in 3Q98

School funding released

Baco booed by experts

Peter Baco, the Agriculture Minister in the government of former Premier Vladimír Mečiar, declared himself satisfied with agricultural developments in his final report on the sector in July 1998. But agriculture experts said the last four years under Baco had brought the farming sector to its knees."This is one of the worst years Slovak agriculture has ever been through," said Ivan Oravec, vice chairman of the Union of Slovak Cooperative Farms. "It's an absolute fiasco," agreed Ivan Rosíval, an agriculture expert with the new government.Baco's approach to the field was set out in two documents - the first his programme declaration from October 1994 and the other a document called Conception and Principles of Agrarian Policy, approved in Parliament in June 1993, which represented the basis of the agrarian programme of the Mečiar government.

Coalition government agreement signed

A group of embittered elderly people were on hand on October 29 to watch 150 newly-elected members of Parliament be sworn in at the chamber's inaugural session. Clustered together on the visitors balcony, they watched impassively as a new government was officially formed of the four opposition parties that won an overwhelming majority in September's national elections."[Premier-elect Mikuláš] Dzurinda says he is fighting for the citizens of this country, but he doesn't have to fight for me," said one old lady who refused to give her name. "I've never respected him. He looks like Hitler."The elderly group had come to Parliament, they said, to support outgoing Slovak Premier Vladimír Mečiar, who entered and left the building rapidly after resigning his function. "He founded independent Slovakia, and for that he should be given the Presidency for life," said one man.

New MBA course promotes local firms

Enterpreneurial Center, a small Bratislava-based market researcher and consulting company, is preparing a project that will promote business opportunities in central Europe in the eyes of American would-be investors and business partners.The Central European Business Survey (CEBS) programme intends to strengthen the position of domestic companies in Slovakia, Slovenia, Austria, Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic. By inviting American MBA graduates to the region, CEBS hopes to spread the good news about central Europe far beyond its borders and at the same time pick the brains of the sharpest young business minds in the west."The Slovak market is full of people who have interesting ideas, but they need help in specific areas like marketing and communication with foreign clients," said Pavol Kopečný, Enterpreneurial Center Project Manager.

Slovak crown trends mirror Czech

Only 3 weeks after the long awaited floating of the Slovak crown against its basket, the currency is strengthening mightily against the lows it posted only 2 days after the float, trading around 9.0% down from the old parity versus 6.3% prior to the float. At the same time, interest rates (and forwards) are coming down rapidly due to sizeable departures from "pre-float" positions and the central bank's determined adding of liquidity via repo tenders.This relatively subdued reaction comes against a background of external economic fundamentals which are in a far worse state than was the case in the Czech Republic at the time of the Czech crown float in May 1997.

Slovak Nazi survivors awarded

Quotes of the Week

Ministry's Transpetrol shares disappear

Less than a month after a national referendum to forbid the privatisation of strategic state energy sector companies, a third of shares in one of Slovakia's largest public energy sector firms mysteriously disappeared from the books of the Economy Ministry. After several days, the Finance Ministry confessed that the shares had been seized by bailiffs to pay off a debt that the Ministry owed to a private company."It's a crazy situation, but Transpetrol wasn't privatised," said Martin Kabát, a securities analyst with Slavia Capital brokers. "The Ministry of Finance paid its obligation to a private company with shares instead of money, because they simply don't have any money."Senior executives of Transpetrol, a.s., Bratislava, which operates a network of crude oil pipelines, found out in late October that a 34.05% stake of their company had been transferred, without the knowledge of the management, to unknown private corporate entities and individuals.

Farmers in dire straits

Slovak farmers have their backs against a wall. Besides the perennial shortage of cash in the agriculture sector, high interest rates and the reluctance of banks to lend money, this year has brought additional trials in the form of an unusually rainy autumn, a fall in crop prices and an 8% shortfall in the 1998 budget for agriculture."This is not an ordinary situation, and it requires extraordinary solutions," said Ivan Oravec, vice chairman of the Union of Slovak Cooperative Farms (ZPD). "The situation is not improving, instead it's getting worse," he added.As a result of the inclement weather and the general financial crisis in farming, old crops have not been fully harvested nor new ones seeded. Cash flows between farmers, consumers and the state are frozen, and Slovakia has come under pressure from cheaper, better and more plentiful crops from neighbouring countries.

Tradition of Slovak tinkers lives on in Žilina

Though tinkers have always had a place in medieval folklore, one gets the feeling from folk tales that they were rather close to the bottom of the heap, socially speaking. Hauling their carts from village to village, hump-shouldered and filthy, they can scarcely have attracted more than grudging acceptance from central Europe's well-off burghers.But the relics which survive of these dimly-remembered people and their trade display an intricate and creative skill. Indeed, the history of tinkers ("drotári") in Slovakia is one of considerable importance to the country's historically poorest regions, Kysuce in the north and Trenčín in the west.

Director of Secret Police recalled

Letter to the Editor: Slovak people should take a close look at their society

November is 8th Month of Photography around Slovakia

Slovakia has a long tradition of amateur and professional photography, and nowhere is this tradition on better display than in the Month of Photography, which hits Slovakia from November 1 to 31.In 1991, the French Institute in Bratislava organised an exhibition of photographs introducing French photographers, called the "Month of Photography ," which ran at the same time as a similar world-famous exhibition in Paris. In the 'Month of Photography's' second year, (1992) Fotofo Agency, an agency founded by Slovak professional photographers and film theoreticians, took over the job of organising the Slovak Month of Photography exhibition.