Archive of articles - June 2001, page 2

Czech BSE case triggers alarms

Slovak authorities imposed a blanket ban on the import and transit of cattle, beef, and beef embryo products from the Czech Republic after officials in Prague June 8 confirmed the first case of BSE (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy) disease outside western Europe.The Slovak move was in line with similar bans on imports of Czech meat products by many EU states following the news from Prague.A ban was also put on the distribution and sale of all Czech foodstuffs containing bovine products in Slovakia. Inspections of retail outlets selling or storing foodstuffs, as well as of school and hospital canteens, were also ordered.

Business Briefs

Ratings agency dents Slovak hopes for investment gradeTop firms in Slovakia see profits soar in 2000Gazprom confirms interest in SPP gas utilityDevín banka requests capital raise to stave off NBSCabinet approves budget outline with 3.4% of GDP deficit

The Banka Slovakia sale so far

June 2000: Finance Ministry announces its plan to privatise 60% of Banka Slovakia.February 2001: A consortium of Česká Pojišťovna (CP) and Slovak firm Hanco withdraws from talks with the government privatisation agency FNM on the purchase of a 60.07% stake in Banka Slovakia.CP says the withdrawal comes after a failure to reach agreement on individual terms of a contract, the main problem being the state's unwillingness to agree to CP's plan to take on just the bank's liabilities and assets and not look after the bank's future.

Pall over Nováky dissipating

NOVÁKY - Visitors to the softly rolling hills of the Upper Nitra valley are frequently struck by their first encounter with this western Slovak town of 4,000 people - the foliage suddenly gives way to denuded forest, the fresh air to the stench of chlorine.It's a contrast between environmental health and sickness that pleases neither local inhabitants nor the European Union, whose strict guidelines on air emissions standards are set to strike Nováky polluters in 2006.The main sources of the stench are the Nováky power plant, owned by state electricity utility Slovenské elektrárne, and private chemical company Novácke chemické závody (NCHZ). But while the latter has pledged to invest in cleaner technology to avoid being shut down under EU-enforced pollution rules, the former has been given an exemption by the Slovak government to continue belching fumes until 2006, when it will be

Around Slovakia

Pensioner's garage reveals guns and stolen carExplosives found in garbage containerEight baby swans born in village lakeFifteen year-old steals $2 worth of cigarettesFive men suspected of forgery arrested

Think tank chief: Slovaks deserve more from government

Grigorij Mesežnikov, president of the independent think tank Institute for Public Affairs, is no Dryasdust academic. When The Slovak Spectator arrived to interview him in his office June 6, he was playing tunes by the Russian rock band Čajf (short for 'Tea Factory'), music he described as "making an aesthetic of the alternative lifestyle". Mesežnikov, who is Russian by birth, confesses to a sometimes overwhelming nostalgia for the culture of his former country, although not one strong enough to send him back east.He also has seven children. Why? Is it some statement of belief in Slovakia's future? "My wife had an idea she wanted many children, although we had no exact number in mind," he says. "Now they're here we're very happy." Nevertheless, he continues, he finds it very difficult to come to terms with how little time he has to spend with his kids - something he calls "a personal failing".

On his honour: Rusko, Markíza TV and ANO

Slovak TV mogul Pavol Rusko, owner of Markíza TV, told The Slovak Spectator the following on February 5, three months before launching his new party, Aliancia Nového Občana (Alliance of the New Citizen - ANO):"I can announce on my honour that no manipulation of Markíza in favour of my party will ever take place," he said. "I advise you to wait and see how it all works out [the relationship between Rusko's Markíza and his new ANO party]. Be observant, and criticise me if mistakes occur - but not before.""Whatever I say today, nobody will believe me anyway."

Community Corner

Latino-American dance partyGhost Theatre at Bojnice Castle1001 Europe lecture series in BratislavaGoethe InstituteFrench Institute exhibitionsOrganised RunsSpanish exhibition at Danubiana

Komárno: Hungarian flavour spices Slovak town

The train from Bratislava passes over the river Váh as it enters Komárno, Slovakia's southernmost city. Since the river is nearly as wide as the Danube, which forms the border in the south between Hungary and Slovakia, a disoriented traveller may think that he has missed his stop and is crossing the Danube into Hungary. Although that hasn't happened, Komárno may still seem like a different world.Komárno (population 40,000) is one of a handful of cities in southern Slovakia dominated by Slovakia's Hungarian minority (locals say the ratio is 70% Hungarian, 30% Slovak). Signs are in Slovak and Hungarian, Hungarian is the conversation of choice, and restaurants serve spicy Hungarian dishes. Even the landscape - flat farmland stretching out toward more flat farmland - is strikingly different than the rest of mountainous Slovakia.

Families transforming with Slovak society

"Congratulations on your graduation. Now you can finally get married and have babies," said Zuzana's grandmother after her grand-daughter received her university diploma last year. The young woman replied: "No granny, it's different nowadays."Unmarried and childless at 24, Zuzana would have been considered an old maid here little more than a decade ago. But in Slovakia's rapidly changing society - just 11 years removed from the 1989 Velvet Revolution - the nature of the typical Slovak family is undergoing a change as well.In the late 1980s, newlywed Slovaks averaged 21 years of age, sociologists say. Today, the average age of newlyweds has risen, the divorce rate has increased, fewer marriages are taking place, and younger people are focusing on career development over starting a family.

Violence splits Roma tribes

PLAVECKÝ ŠTVRTOK: What began as a spat between two neighbourhood Roma children in western Slovakia's Plavecký Štvrtok has escalated into a crisis dividing the town's 700-strong Roma community. The conflict, lasting several weeks now, has left 31 residents injured, 22 people imprisoned and several Roma dwellings burnt to the ground.An attempt June 5 to bring the warring Roma factions together and end the violence dissolved in chaos with one clan leader defending threats by a Roma man to burn his children if a solution wasn't found. Town leaders and police expressed dismay with the conflict, which they said they were powerless to solve until peace returned to the community.

Quote of the Week

Business Briefs

Cabinet calls for SPaP decision to be overturnedKinčeš, Krajňák left off new SPP gas utility boardSLK shipyard signs 500 million crown contractHungary's OTP bank puts in bid for IRBIRB suspends tender for e-banking systemSale of power monolith further threatened

10 years after: HZDS marks turbulent past

Slovakia's most popular party, the opposition Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (HZDS), had planned to celebrate its 10th anniversary June 2 in the same Banská Bystrica state theatre where it was founded. But a last-minute decision by Culture Minister Milan Kňažko - himself a former member of the party - to forbid the use of state premises forced the party to call off the festivities, and underlined the depth of disagreement over just how much the HZDS has helped - or harmed - the country it ruled in three separate administrations.Political analysts say the party has been a unique phenomenon in Slovak politics. It has never registered less than 27% support, or finished anywhere less than first place, in the three elections it has contested (1992, 1994 and 1998). Its leader, the charismatic Vladimír Mečiar, had over 80% voter trust ratings at the height of his popularity in 1991, and even today has the firm support of over a quarter of the electorate.

This Week

Slovaks making business sense of golf

"Golf is like English in the business world - a necessary tool of communication," claims Vladimír Soták, general director of central Slovak metals plant Železiarne Podbrezová.Introduced to golf during a language course in England five years ago, Soták has been pushing ever since to get more and more businesses in Slovakia turned onto the world sport, and more and more courses built in his home country.Sure of the fact that golf plays an effective role in business negotiation, he has swung dog-legs and marched up fairways around the world with foreign partners, cementing, he says, some of the export deals for the 65% of his company's production that heads out of Slovakia.

Letters to the editor

All Slovak banks great and small

Following a failure to sell Slovakia's smallest bank, Banka Slovakia, in a tender earlier this year, the state has found three entities ready to step into the Slovak banking sector.Brokerage house Slávia Capital, J & T Finance Group, and stock broker 1. Paroplavebná have confirmed that they are interested in buying the 60% share in the finance house on offer from the state.However, two of the interested parties, Slávia and J & T Finance, the latter of which backed out of a tender for the bank last year, have made it clear that they have more interest in the licence available than the future of the finance house.

Viewpoint: Jen Kalafut

Controversy is rising over the planned construction of a fifth bridge in Bratislava, known as Košická most (Košická Bridge). While Metro a.s. - the company in charge of its construction - argues that the bridge is a necessity to alleviate traffic flow problems in the city, local residents and activists question the planning and demand greater consideration.Both city officials and the public agree that Bratislava has traffic problems. A new bridge may well lessen the demand on other bridges during heavy transport. But there is no clear idea of what impact a new bridge would have on solving the traffic problems in the city as no formal, independent impact assessment has been developed, and no other options considered.