Archive of articles - April 1999, page 6

Quote of the Week

Taxes: Too many Slovaks are asking "Why pay?"

The deadline for paying taxes in Slovakia has come and gone, but the reluctance of many Slovak citizens to discharge their financial duties towards the state remains.This poor sense of civic responsibility is one of many social deformities inherited from the 1948 to 1989 communist regime. "If you're not stealing from the state, you're stealing from your own family" became a catchphrase during those decades, as well as a popular justification for everything from job absenteeism to embezzlement.Almost ten years after the fall of communism, however, this defiant attitude towards civic duties remains as strong as ever, costing the state billions of crowns in lost revenues every year. The government and Finance Minister Brigita Schmögnerová have made a priority of tightening tax rules and punishing tax evaders, but public opinion remains set against voluntary compliance.

Around Slovakia

Human skull found in forestExplanation of "hairless Martians" offeredBird hunting angers bird expertDeadly gun playTraditional Easter customs cherished by region74-year-old woman catches fire

Unemployment crisis devastates Spiš

SPIŠ- The signs of deep unemployment are all over Spišska Nová Ves, the northernmost district of the Košice region in eastern Slovakia. People wander through the town's stores with almost empty bags, buying only a few things. Talk on the street is about job troubles. The train and bus stations are sprinkled with young people heading to Bratislava or other cities to look for work. The job board at the local job center perhaps tells the toughest story: though there are 11,000 people unemployed here, only 32 available job openings are listed.With a 25.63% unemployment rate as of Feb. 28, 1999, this mountainous district is one of the worst hit by unemployment in Slovakia. The suffering is hitting ordinary people like unemployed construction worker Marian J., who would not give his last name.

Telecom ministry propels two major projects forward

After the September, 1998 elections, the Telecom Ministry underscored that its two biggest tasks were finding a strategic foreign investor for the state-run Telecom monopoly Slovenské Telekomunikácie (ST) and awarding a third mobile phone tender for the GSM 1800 frequency.While both projects have encountered obstacles, the Ministry said that new developments have occurred and that both are expected to be resolved without additional delay. In fact, according to Stanislav Vanek, the Telecom Ministry Regulatory Department Director, both issues are expected to be concluded before the start of the new millennium."The GSM tender will be decided this month," Vanek said. "And we hope to announce the strategic foreign partner for ST as early as November."

Slovakia opens skies to NATO

The Slovak government's decision to allow NATO warplanes to fly through the country's airspace on their way to bombing assignments in Yugoslavia has split the nation. While government politicians expressed support for the NATO campaign, opposition deputies branded Slovakia's collaboration with the alliance as "illegal." Ordinary Slovaks, meanwhile, appeared profoundly uneasy about abetting a military operation against a regional neighbour."I can't understand how they can do it," said a 20 year-old journalist from Bratislava who asked not to be named. "It's intervention, and they're killing innocent people."On March 25, the day that NATO bombing raids began, the cabinet of Prime Minister Mikuláš Dzurinda officially announced that Slovak air space would be made available for the needs of the NATO Air Force in the war over Kosovo.

Railway strike averted as trade unions and management agree on wage raise

Cabinet approves revision to income tax act

Belgian Delhaize supermarket chain becomes biggest Slovak supermarket operator

Janusz Bugajski: "Kosovars just need weapons"

Six days after NATO started bombing Yugoslavia to stop the genocide against the ethnic Albanian minority in Kosovo, Janusz Bugajski, Director of the East European Studies Department at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington visited Slovakia to share his opinions about the Balkan crisis.After an interview with The Slovak Spectator on March 30, Bugajski revealed that his friend Baton Haxhiu, editor-in-chief of the Kosovo daily paper Koha Ditore, had been murdered the day before along with four other opponents of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic.

State insurer reports almost 70 billion crowns in revenues in 1998

Central bank says no room for big monetary easing

Crisis and discrimination in Slovak schools

Slovak teachers and school employees - all 150,000 of them - are falling into increasing poverty. The promises of current political leaders when they were in opposition about the dignity of pedagogy are unravelling without end. More than three quarters of students and recent graduates of teaching colleges do not intend to work in schools: They know they wouldn't be able to start a family on the salaries they would make. The exception to this rule are those who have rich husbands.The result of this state of affairs is the rapid ageing of teaching faculties at all schools. Hand in hand with this goes a return of the conservatism of past generations of Slovak society. Women teachers - because this trend is mostly concerned with women - are beginning to protest more visibly, but even so, the theme of the relationship between Slovak society and schools has more or less died out.

Daewoo shoots for market share with new model

Korean car maker Daewoo has released a small and inexpensive new model - the Matiz - which it hopes will help the firm break Czech car-maker Škoda's stranglehold on top spot on the Slovak auto market. Although Škoda sells over three times as many cars as does Daewoo, its nearest competitor, the Korean manufacturer hopes the Matiz will catch the eye of the cost-conscious Slovak consumer.Of the almost 70,000 cars sold in Slovakia in 1998, Škoda accounted for over 32,000, giving the company a commanding 42.2% of the market. Daewoo finished a distant second with a 12.3% share, representing under 10,000 units.

Police seek arrest of former security chief

Former president unhappy with rules for presidential elections

Highway programme braked

German supermodel Claudia Schiffer visited Slovakia last September to cut the ribbon on a new stretch of highway. The visit was probably her last - funding cuts and sober planning will reduce the pace of Slovak highway construction to a crawl over the next fifteen years.The highway construction programme launched by former Prime Minister Vladimír Mečiar in 1996 sought to create two new freeways across the country - one running north-south, between Poland and Bratislava, and one east-west linking the Czech Republic and the Ukraine. At a total cost of 229 billion Slovak crowns ($5.5 billion), the project was to add 400 kilometers of new roads and to be finished by the year 2005.

Jirko Malchárek - "Pettiest things" cause problems

At 32 years of age, Jirko Malchárek is one of the youngest members of parliament in Slovakia. And as a race car driver in the Porsche super car series, one level below Formula 1, he is certainly one of the most unusual.Malchárek is a deputy for the Party of Civic Reconciliation, having being elected to parliament in September, 1998 national elections. He also has an automobile show on the private station TV Markíza, in which he gives basic driving tips to viewers.The Slovak Spectator caught up with Malchárek in the corridors of parliament on March 30.

Murder suspect arrested in Ducký case