Archive of articles - The Slovak Spectator

This week in Slovakia

Content of programme: Right wing takes beating in local elections; Daily exposes patient neglect; Coalition agrees on prosecutor; Slovaks not wild about sex

EC predicts good Slovak GDP growth but notes 2010 budget deficit looms large

Slovakia is expected to find itself among the top countries in the European Union when it comes to economic growth over the next three years, according to an autumn prognosis released by the European Commission on November 29, the TASR newswire reported. But the EU's executive branch now projects Slovakia's budget deficit in 2010 to reach 8.2 percent of GDP, in contrast to the 6 percent predicted in its spring prognosis.

Slovaks living abroad concerned about grant cuts

Representatives of Slovaks living abroad are concerned about cuts in their grants, said Vladimír Skalský, the head of the Association of Slovaks Living Abroad (SZSZ) during his official visit to the Presidential Palace on November 29, the TASR newswire reported. An SZSZ delegation, here for a conference of the Office for Slovaks Living Abroad in Bratislava, met President Ivan Gašparovič and his wife Silvia. Skalský noted that the grant programme for Slovaks abroad, which was supposed to be guaranteed at a minimum of €1.3 million, has been set at less than €1.16 million in the budget draft for 2011.

Slovak delegation at EU-Africa summit headed by ambassador to Libya

The Slovak delegation at the third EU-Africa summit in Tripoli on November 29 and 30 is headed by the Slovak ambassador to Libya, Marian Záhora, though originally it should have been led by Foreign Affairs Minister Mikuláš Dzurinda, the TASR newswire was informed. Because Dzurinda is accompanying President Ivan Gasparovic at the OSCE summit in Kazakhstan in mid-week, Záhora was selected as the substitute head of the delegation. The two-day summit at the level of head of states and governments, with European Council President Herman van Rompuy in attendance, focuses on investment, economic growth and the creation of new jobs.

Gašparovič and Dzurinda to take part in OSCE summit in Kazakhstan

President Ivan Gašparovič and Foreign Affairs Minister Mikuláš Dzurinda are departing on November 30 for an OSCE summit in Astana, Kazakhstan on December 1 and 2, the Presidential Office's press department informed the TASR newswire. After the recent NATO-Russia summit in Lisbon, this will be another occasion aimed at improving relations between East and West, TASR wrote. The ambition of the summit is to deepen the negotiations on security problems stretching from Vancouver to Vladivostok.

Slovak economic sentiment indicator rises in November

Slovakia’s economic sentiment indicator went up 0.7 to 92.6 percentage points in November the Statistics Office of the Slovak Republic informed the SITA newswire.

NGO reports that some Slovak courts are refusing to make their verdicts public

According to the civic association Citizen, Democracy and Accountability (ODZ), several regional and district courts in Slovakia are not acting in accordance with the law on access to information and are refusing to permit the public to obtain the full text of their verdicts, the SITA newswire reported. ODZ monitored Slovak courts in the fall of 2010 in a follow-up similar to its 2009 survey. The NGO’s director, Šarlota Pufflerová, told SITA that some of the courts which are refusing to publish their verdicts have argued that they do not have a legal basis for making their decisions accessible to the public. She added that some courts do not communicate with the public at all even after they are asked to publish a specific verdict.

Former Slovak Football Association official is sentenced to prison

A former high official of the Slovak Football Association, Vladimír Wänke, will go to prison as the Slovak Supreme Court confirmed the verdict of the Special Court in Pezinok from April 7, 2009, which sentenced Wänke to three years and fourth months in prison for soliciting a bribe, the SITA newswire reported. Wänke was also sentenced to a €2,000 fine. Both the defendant and the prosecutor appealed against the initial verdict but the Supreme Court rejected both appeals on Monday, November 29.

Slovakia to guarantee €180 million of the EU loan to Ireland

Slovakia has committed to guarantee up to nearly €180 million of the EU loan to Ireland, said Minister of Finance Ivan Mikloš at a news conference on Monday, November 29, the SITA newswire reported. The total sum of the loan to Ireland will definitively reach €85 billion, as was agreed at the meeting of Finance Ministers of the EU member states on Sunday.

339 people with HIV diagnosed in Slovakia since 1985

From October 2009 until the end of October this year, HIV infection was diagnosed in thirty citizens of the Slovak Republic, almost 20 fewer people than in the previous twelve-month period. Of 339 cases of HIV infection recorded here from the beginning of HIV and AIDS monitoring in Slovakia in 1985, 286 patients were males and 53 females, the SITA newswire reported.

Labour Ministry says 8 percent of Slovak women face domestic violence

According to estimates, the spokeswoman for the Labour, Social Affairs and Family Ministry, Lucia Nicholsonová, reported that 8 percent of women and girls over 15 have faced some form of domestic violence in Slovakia, the TASR newswire wrote. "It's some 150,000 women and girls, which represents a rather disturbing figure. In particular, this concerns women with lower education or socially-disadvantaged backgrounds. And I have to say that the statistics spike in Roma settlements in eastern Slovakia again where violence is a common occurrence in the lives of Roma women," Nicholsonová said, as quoted by TASR. According to Nicholsonová, there are only some 800 females that muster the courage to file a criminal complaint against a perpetrator – with whom they usually share a household. Nicholsonová said that the Labour Ministry managed to allocate €4.7 million to a programme designed to curb domestic violence against women. The project will be jointly funded from the state budget (20 percent) and the European Social Fund (80 percent).

OECD team inspects Slovakia’s development aid programme

A team from the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development - OECD – arrived in Slovakia on Monday, November 29 to evaluate the Slovak efforts to provide official humanitarian aid, the SITA newswire reported.

NDS announces tenders for D1 highway stretches from Jánovce to Jablonov

Slovakia’s National Highway Company (NDS) announced a public tender to select a contractor for the construction of D1 highway sections from Jánovce to Jablonov with a total length of 18.5 kilometres, the SITA newswire reported.

Initiative to establish a “Crimes of Communism” museum is launched

The Bratislava building 'At Two Lions' where the regional Police Directorate resides or a family house in Trnávka where illegal samizdats (self-published dissident manuscripts) were printed during the communist reign could become the site of the Museum of Crimes of Communism, the SITA newswire reported.

Dutch Ambassador Daphne Bergsma speaking with students in Liptovský Mikuláš.

Learning to be tolerant

BUILDING a tolerant society is never an overnight project and sometimes many years are needed to achieve such a goal. The desire of minorities to preserve their identity and lead a full and dignified life as well as the hopes of sexual minorities for registered partnerships or achieving full gender equality are difficult issues that require broad social discussion in a mature and tolerant national atmosphere.

Beata Balogová

Minister faces off against chief justice

DENYING state auditors access to institutions which subsist on public funds is a potentially costly activity – or so the president of Slovakia’s Supreme Court, Štefan Harabin, may be about to find out. The Supreme Court has, at Harabin’s direction, been denying access to Finance Ministry auditors since August this year. Finance Minister Ivan Mikloš has hit back with a €33,000 fine, and Mikloš and Harabin have since sued each other’s institutions.

Beata Balogová

More Slovaks hit the internet to shop

THE ECONOMIC downturn and better internet connections have drawn more Slovaks onto the internet to do their shopping. An increasing level of trust by Slovak customers in making online purchases has also contributed to this growth even though the online marketplace in Slovakia still trails behind some other countries. Slovaks are buying books, insurance policies, clothing, tickets for events, cameras, mobile phones, home appliances, electronics and many other kinds of products and services online. Industry experts expect online shopping to continue to grow and say that differentiating between online and traditional bricks-and-mortar shops will not be as clear in coming years.

Jana Liptáková

Criticism of e-toll system resurfaces

SLOVAKIA’S electronic highway toll-collection system has been operating for almost one year, but it seems that the bugs in the system are yet to be ironed out. One association of Slovak haulage companies has taken its complaints to court and is also saying that the new government of Iveta Radičová is doing nothing to fix the faulty system.

Jana Liptáková

Slovaks are inclined to buy fakes

ONLY about one in three Slovaks hold a markedly negative attitude to buying imitation branded goods and only a similar share say they would never buy this kind of fake product. But most Slovaks said they are slightly inclined to purchase fake goods in the future and a majority said they would not mind wearing something ‘not genuine’ as long as people around them were not aware of it. These are the results from an online survey conducted in November by GfK Slovakia among a sample of 765 respondents.

Compiled by Spectator staff

IMF more optimistic about Slovakia

THE INTERNATIONAL Monetary Fund (IMF) is more optimistic than the Slovak Finance Ministry in its forecasts for the country’s economic development. The fund, in a report from its mission to Slovakia conducted in October 2010, says it expects budget-tightening measures to have a rather moderate impact on the development of prices and predicts stronger economic growth and slower price increases in Slovakia. The IMF expects the Slovak economy to grow by over 4 percent this year.

Compiled by Spectator staff

Archive of articles - November 2010

This week in Slovakia

EC predicts good Slovak GDP growth but notes 2010 budget deficit looms large

Slovaks living abroad concerned about grant cuts

Slovak delegation at EU-Africa summit headed by ambassador to Libya

Gašparovič and Dzurinda to take part in OSCE summit in Kazakhstan

Slovak economic sentiment indicator rises in November

NGO reports that some Slovak courts are refusing to make their verdicts public

Former Slovak Football Association official is sentenced to prison

Slovakia to guarantee €180 million of the EU loan to Ireland

339 people with HIV diagnosed in Slovakia since 1985

Labour Ministry says 8 percent of Slovak women face domestic violence

OECD team inspects Slovakia’s development aid programme

NDS announces tenders for D1 highway stretches from Jánovce to Jablonov

Initiative to establish a “Crimes of Communism” museum is launched

Learning to be tolerant

Minister faces off against chief justice

More Slovaks hit the internet to shop

Criticism of e-toll system resurfaces

Slovaks are inclined to buy fakes

IMF more optimistic about Slovakia

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