Archive of articles - July 2000

Austria's BAWAG sets sights on IRB

News of the first publicly expressed interest in state bank Investičná a rozvojová banka (IRB) has boosted the government's privatisation plans for the financial house, as one month after a tender for IRB was launched Austria's BAWAG said it was stepping into the race.Having failed in its bid to take a majority share in one Slovak bank, BAWAG said July 19 it was taking a closer look at the state's 69% stake on offer in Investičná, and had not lost interest in the Slovak banking sector. In May BAWAG missed out on a 51% share in the medium-sized bank Poľnobanka, losing out to Italy's UniCredito."IRB is one of a few investments we are looking at in Slovakia, principally in the banking sector," said BAWAG spokesman Peter Narkowitz. He added that despite IRB's financial woes, BAWAG viewed the Slovak bank's outlet network as attractive and saw IRB as a "good prospect".

News Briefs

Lexa arrest not to be debated before August 20Health minister wants to win back patients' trust'Dunajská Streda massacre' case nearing conclusion

US Air Force returns to Kuchyňa

After an April visit to western Slovakia which brought F-16 Falcon fighter planes screaming over the Kuchyňa airbase, the United States Air Force returned to the site July 8 to 29 with a fleet of A-10 Thunderbolt jets. Local residents, who had earlier complained bitterly of the noise and disruption caused by the F-16's, welcomed the quieter A-10's, while Slovak officials and military analysts agreed that the cooperation with the Americans was improving both the skills and image of the Slovak military."Compared to the F-16s, these airplanes sound more like cars," said Martina Bednáriková, a resident of the nearby town of Malacky, who took her children to see the planes and talk to the pilots at an open house on the Kuchyňa base. "You notice the noise, but it's not a big deal. Before with the F-16s, my children were scared because the planes were so loud."The purpose of the US Air Force's latest visit, officials at the base said, was to strengthen

FNM bonds spark market interest

Over the past two years the Slovak capital market has been struggling to make itself attractive to domestic as well as foreign investors. But although the Association of Securities Dealers has worked in cooperation with the Bratislava Stock Exchange and the government in finding ways to revive Slovak securities trading, their efforts have so far not paid off.However, over the first half of this year the capital market found an interesting security for traders, namely the bond issued in 1994 by the state privatisation agency (the National Property Fund - FNM) on January 1, 1996 to every Slovak citizen older than 18 years (the bond coincided with the launch of the second wave of 'voucher privatisation'). Even though the bonds are at present traded only on the RM System (OTC market), their trading on the BSE is in preparation and was expected to have been launched by the time The Slovak Spectator went to print.

This Week

Heroin in Bratislava: The needle and the damage done

A scrawny, mottled young man who could be anywhere between the ages of 15 to 25 works the Bratislava streets on a seemingly constant patrol for spare change. Sometimes he says he has AIDS and that he needs money for medication. But on a recent afternoon when a passer-by offered to buy him lunch, he crossly insisted on the money instead, making a jabbing motion at his arm and saying: "I need the money for my pleasure. You don't know what it means to me!"With his ravaged skin and wizened frame, this young man is a pitiable reminder of the toll levied by heroin since it first appeared in Bratislava in 1991. Now, almost 10 years later, Slovak health officials say that the boom is over, that they have learned how to treat addicts, and that the country has dodged the drug's most serious side-effects (Slovakia has the lowest number of registered HIV cases in Europe and a rate of hepatitis among users comparable to that of the general population, officials say).

The Last Word

Vladimír Lexa, the father of former Slovak spy boss Ivan Lexa, says he has had enough of the media and government politicians 'demonising' his son. Lexa Sr., who was deputy prime minister of Czechoslovakia in the 1990-1991 government of Milan Čič and later privatised the flour mill Považské mlyny a pekárne, spoke for almost an hour with Lucia Nicholsonová, a reporter for the Sme daily, on July 26.Lexa Sr. said he had been motivated to speak out by the recent statements issued by Interior Minister Pittner. At a press conference on July 24, Pittner called Ivan Lexa a "gangster", and said that while boss of the Slovak Information Service, Lexa Jr. had been controlled by Russian mafia boss Sergei Mogiljevic.Ivan Lexa has been charged with 15 crimes, including sabotage and abuse of power, which he allegedly committed while in charge of the SIS. According to the Interior Ministry he is in hiding abroad, and documents prove he applied for citizenship in the Caribbean nation of Grenada late last year (one record shows Lexa Jr. even pledged alleigance to the British Queen in order to qualify for citizenship).

Low interest bonds beat company lending

The recent success of T-bill auctions, even at an interest rate of a little over 7%, has confirmed a bleak truth for Slovak firms - the future of government securities will be bright as long as the Slovak banking sector remains unwilling to push money into the country's lacklustre corporate sector.Oversubscribed July 13 and July 19 issues of 364-day T-bills saw the Finance Ministry pull in around 2.4 billion crowns at a yield hovering around 7.3% per annum to finance budget spending. But with bank bids climbing to 5.03 billion crowns, analysts said the issues proved that the sector's excess liquidity had again bypassed Slovak companies in need of cash."The government must be happy with the low interest rate on the T-bills and the demand generated in the T-bills itself, but this is crowding out [lending to] companies," said Miloš Božek of J & T Securities in Bratislava. "The banks are sitting on their money. They have a lot of money but want a secure investment on that money, and the most secure is probably state debt," added Bozek.

Review: Tired Patriot exhausts cliché

Patriot has caused something of a stir in England - not for its sappiness and formulaic plot, but for its portrayal of the English as brutes. Apparently, being cast time and again as the monsters of history is growing tiresome for the modern day Angles and Saxons. But while such cinematic treatment may be unfair, it remains effective - with refined accent and manner, the genteel British villain has always been a favourite with US audiences, particularly when bested by straight-talking, jingoistic American Joe.Directed by a German and starring two Australians, Patriot makes full use of this tired Hollywood script. Set against the backdrop of South Carolina at the start of the American Revolutionary war, Patriot features a pack of rather poorly behaved English, who shoot the wounded and captured, burn a church full of civilians, and kill Mel Gibson's son, by far their biggest mistake. (Didn't those imperialist swine learn anything from killing Gibson's wife in Braveheart? If you're English and don't want a lot of trouble, don't mess with Gibson's family. It's as simple as that.)

'Political nominees' cause fresh scandal

Yet another scandal involving a political party's use of a state-owned firm to raise money for itself surfaced last week, and left analysts despairing of the will of the current government to root out corruption within its own ranks.The latest scandal erupted when it became known that the printing firm Prima Print, 80% owned by the ruling coalition Democratic Left Party (SDĽ), had last year signed an exclusive four-year contract to supply the state owned insurance firm Slovenská poisťovňa (SP) with stationery. The contract, the value of which was not disclosed, was signed on poisťovňa's side by SP president Rudolf Janáč and member of the board Vladimír Hudec. Both were nominated to their posts by the SDĽ following 1998 elections.Both Prima Print and the SDĽ refused accusations of clientelism. "It is absurd to say that the contract is clientelist, nobody influenced anybody," said Ján Richter, secretary of a senior SDĽ body, the republican council.

SE, SPP sales still on course

The government has reassured potential investors that its plans to sell two of Slovakia's richest privatisation assets, gas utility Slovenský plynárenský priemysel (SPP) and energy utility Slovenské elektrárne (SE), are still on course after both firms' financial performances were recently dented.Slovenské elektrárne July 18 released figures showing that it had posted a 1999 loss of 3.92 billion crowns ($86 million), while SPP, considered the government's 'cash-cow', saw its pre tax profits for the first quarter of the year tumble 38% from the same period of 1999 to 5.7 billion crowns.But the Economy Ministry, which administers the utilities, put the losses down to external factors, such as restructuring prior to privatisation at SE and international oil prices at SPP.

Old Town Notes: A car-free Korzo still a distant dream

In the Old Town pedestrian zone, it is still dangerous to suppose that pedestrians are free to use the whole width of the promenade. At any time throughout the day, it can happen that one feels a car rapidly approaching behind one's back. For some reason, the pedestrian zone attracts powerful vehicles owned by people who are either too lazy or too arrogant to take a five-minute walk to visit a shop or restaurant. They feel an absurd need to demonstrate their financial success by parking their million-crown cars right in front of a building.This is a blatant violation of the traffic laws for the pedestrian zone, which have been crystal-clear since being approved in 1996 by the Old Town district council. Cars are permitted to enter the zone and park on the streets only between 22:00 and 9:00. During this time, Korzo's numerous shops and restaurants are expected to have their supplies delivered by truck.But during the daytime, cars can only enter the pedestrian zone if the owners are Old Town residents and have a parking space other than on the streets, or if the driver is disabled. Also, official embassy vehicles are permitted, as according to international law they are classified under special legislation as "untouchables" and being under the ownership of a sovereign country. But ideally, there should be no cars parked on the Old Town streets during the daytime.

Wasting their breath:A tale of two parties

It's still just about two years before voters go back to the ballot boxes (assuming we don't have early elections), but politicians are clearly itching to hit the hustings, if one can draw any conclusions from the announcement this month that two new political parties are about to be founded.There's nothing intrinsically wrong with such ambition, but in these particular cases we have two more examples of failed politicians wasting their time on hopeless political enterprises. Slovakia already has enough of such political dinosaurs, just as it already has enough parties which don't represent any clear ideology save that of power to their founders.Ján Budaj and Juraj Švec, whose Democratic Union (DÚ) party was recently crushed by Prime Minister Mikuláš Dzurinda's SDKÚ juggernaut, have apparently decided that their country still needs them, and have announced the formation of the Liberal-Democratic Union.

Around Slovakia

Workers exposed to radiation at V-2 reactor91 police officers charged in six monthsHundreds pay respects to Jaro Filip

Scarred refugees view Slovakia as a "transitional country"

BREZOVÁ POD BRADLOM: Four year-old Anna and her three year-old brother Hamlet giggled uncontrollably as they wrestled over a ball at a refugee camp in western Slovakia. Considering their harrowing journey to Slovakia just three months ago, their laughter was remarkable.The children's' father, 30 year-old Geno, said he had seen "something I should not have seen" in their native Armenia. When the people committing the crime he had witnessed threatened to kill him, Geno scraped up $10,000 to pay a local ring of so-called body smugglers to take him and his family to Slovakia. The journey meant hiding in the back of a truck with a group of others fleeing the country."They drove us up here through Turkey - we were in the truck for 15 days," Geno said at the Brezová pod Bradlom camp on July 25. "Armenia has many political problems, it's better here in Slovakia."

Bankruptcy law to create employment

Only a few days before figures released by the National Labour Office showed that unemployment had crept back above 20%, Deputy Prime Minister for the Economy Ivan Mikloš denied that new laws on bankruptcy would fuel the jobless rate.Heralding the recent amendments to Slovakia's bankruptcy laws, due to come into effect August 1, as "the most significant economic law to be passed by this government during its term so far", Mikloš said July 21 that there would be no major effect on unemployment from the new law.The Deputy PM added that the new laws would in fact have a long-term positive effect on employment levels by forcing inefficient companies to restructure, by giving companies easier access to credit lines and alowing firms to continue operations even when in bankruptcy proceedings.

Quake raises questions over paneláky

Residents of western Slovakia had an unusual wake-up call during the early morning hours of July 11. An earthquake registering 4.9 on the Richter scale, whose epicentre was in eastern Austria, rocked many areas of the Bratislava and Trnava regions as well. While no damage was reported, many surprised Slovaks reported having been shaken out of their sleep - and out of their previous belief that a serious quake could never hit their country.Although Slovakia does not rank among the world's most tectonically active areas, seismologists said they were not surprised by the tremor. Mild quakes are not unusual in this area, they reported, adding that Slovaks should get expect more of the same in the future.

Changing the Way You Do Business

I want you to imagine yourself in 2005, as the human resources manager in a firm of more than 100 employees. Slovakia has progressed to joining the European Union and this is having far-reaching effects on your employment and HR management strategy. The whole environment is open and forward looking and some of your employees have an eye on the west where the skills crisis has resulted in attractive salaries.Meanwhile, your firm has won a lot of new business and is growing quickly. It's no longer possible to hold a big company-wide meeting, and you have a nasty feeling that you don't know your workforce well enough to make informed decisions. Your life is taken up with administration and keeping things in the balance. You feel that if only you could get a break from juggling training budgets and headcount requests, writing up reports and arguing with the boss about bonus allocations, you could really make a difference to the way your firm works.

Letters to the editor

A Europe founded on ignorance?nazov