Archive of articles - June 1999

Palacka signs telecom sale advisory agreement with Deutsche Bank

Schuster pledges to be unifier

Vowing to work towards a more unified government and against a surge in privatisation-related crime, Slovakia's first directly elected president, Rudolf Schuster, took the nation's helm June 15 in a noon inauguration ceremony attended by a wide range of national and international political elite.Five foreign presidents were present, including Václav Havel, president of the Czech Republic, and the presidents of Austria, Hungary, Poland, and the Ukraine. Among Slovaks, controversial businessmen such as financier Jozef Majsky and TV Markíza General Director Pavol Rusko joined with government officials in a show of support.

May inflation rate 0.2%, y-o-y down to 6.7%

PNS shareholders don't approve annual final accounts for 1998

Owner: Internet cafés show little or no profit

Internet cafés in Slovakia are becoming a rare breed, even though they fill an educational void for students unable to afford the cost of a home computer and an Internet connection.Peter Kurthy, owner of two Bratislava Internet cafés including "the first Internet café in Slovakia," said his business was being driven into the ground by the high connect rates charged by state telecom monopoly Slovenské Telekuminikácie (ST). Most of his customers, Kurthy said, were unable to afford to foot the entire connection bill, forcing him to subsidize the service out of his own pocket."My monthly expenses for Internet connections are about 60,000 Slovak crowns, while my earnings [at I Café in Dubrávka] are around 15,000 crowns," he said.

Balance of payments registers surplus of 3.7 billion Sk in Feb.

Quotes of the Week

Art Spotlight

Three liters of bryndzové halušky small work for hefty men in national eating competition

Life is normally serene and simple in Turecká, a picturesque country village nestled between two towering mountains fifteen kilometers north of Banská Bystrica and a stone's throw from where the High Fatra mountain range meets the not-so-low Low Tatras. But once a year an explosion of festivity in honour of the Slovak national dish, the World Championship of Cooking and Eating Bryndzové Halušky, befalls its one hundred and forty permanent residents.This year over a thousand people descended upon the small mountain village June 12 - 13 to watch the fierce competition which has grown up around this simple mixture of shredded potatoes mixed with flour, water, and salt.

Getting a green card - some things never change

Despite the current government's pro-investment, pro-EU, pro-western avowals, getting a license to live and work in Slovakia remains as formidable a hurdle as ever for foreigners. The most frustrating thing about the whole green card ordeal is that it is so pointless - it deters investment rather than criminals, wastes man-hours and exacerbates Slovakia's banana republic image.Here, in a nutshell, is what you have to do to get a Slovak green card. First, you have to obtain police and medical records and university diplomas in your home country, fill out a form and submit everything to the Slovak embassy in your home country.

Pro-drug atmosphere prevails in Slovak schools

Letter to the Editor: Rusko should lose his media soapbox

Letter to the Editor: Government must cut taxes immediately

AROUND SLOVAKIA

Slovak juggler breaks his own recordNew priests ordained"Pilot failure" likely cause of air show crashComic-masked robbers get away with 1 million crowns

Law on free access to information in works

In a plan which may curtail the frustration of journalists in search of government-held information, deputies for the SDK party are working on a law which would require that state institutions and local offices provide information to media and citizens upon request.Though the Slovak constitution stipulates that people should have free access to information from offices whose activities "affect public life," Slovak legislation has no law which outlines how this process is to proceed. The result, critics say, is a system in which government officials can arbitrarily decide which information is and is not public, leaving journalists and others denied facts with little legal recourse.

Analysts view GDP growth news with caution

An export-led rise in first quarter real gross domestic product (GDP) brought some cheer to Slovakia's fragile economy, but analysts cautioned against any undue optimism for the long-term economic outlook.Slovakia's economy grew by a real 1.8% year-on-year in the first quarter of 1999, up from 0.5% growth in the last quarter of 1998 and 4.4% for the whole of last year, the Slovak Statistical Office said on June 15.The figures were much as expected but analysts drew some comfort from the strong impact of exports versus imports. Exports were up by a real 4.7% compared with minus 4.2% for imports.

Telenor: We see GSM tender decision in a "balanced way"

Founded in 1996, Telenor Slovakia is a subsidiary of Telenor International, a Norwegian telecom and information technology provider. The firm submitted a bid to operate Slovakia's prospective GSM 1800 mobile phone network in an international tender announced in August 1998, but was rejected because, the Telecom Ministry said, they had not provided sufficient documentation before the tender deadline.Are Mathisen, Telenor Slovakia Country Manager, said that his firm had not submitted a bid in the second GSM 1800 tender, announced on January 15, because the new conditions for GSM 1800 operators had been less favorable than those in the first tender.

GSM 1800 licence to be shared by Globtel and EuroTel

Telecom Minister Gabriel Palacka announced on June 15 he would not call a third tender for a 1800 MHz GSM band mobile phone licence after two previous tenders flopped - opening the band for the two current GSM operators, Globtel and Eurotel. The latest tender for the licence, with a deadline of April 15, from which the two current mobile network operators were excluded, failed because the ministry received no bids.The ministry has said that potential applicants were probably deterred by Slovakia's poor economic outlook and the saturation of the Slovak mobile market. However, Are Mathisen, country director for Telenor Slovakia, one of the three companies reported to be interested in the tender, disagreed. Telenor applied for the first GSM 1800 tender in August last year, Mathisen said, but had not bothered to enter the second tender because of its unfavourable conditions, including a minimum purchase price for the license of ten million dollars.

Letter to the Editor: The chicken that never was