Archive of articles - January 2011

Opposition MPs want secret vote for RTVS head, coalition prefers it recorded

Opposition MPs approached by the TASR newswire on January 30 said the vote to select the director-general of Radio and Television Slovakia (RTVS) should be a secret ballot while representatives of the governing coalition want a recorded vote. Smer MP Dušan Jarjabek wants to promote the secret vote in Parliament.

Nová Baňa local council withdraws Stalin’s honorary citizenship

The former dictator of the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin, lost his honorary citizenship of Nová Baňa in Banská Bystrica region after 64 years, as the newly-elected municipal council took the decision to withdraw the honorary citizenship from Stalin at its first meeting, the TASR newswire wrote.

Bratislava welcomed more foreign tourists than domestic visitors in 2010

More than 63 percent of the 579,075 tourists who visited Bratislava Region in the first nine months of 2010 were foreigners, the Statistics Office announced, as reported by the TASR newswire. Compared to the same period in 2009, the number of domestic tourists in Bratislava Region fell by 10.6 percent, while the number of foreigners increased by 8.2 percent. This region hosted 21.8 percent of all visitors in Slovakia. Most tourists came to Bratislava from the Czech Republic (18 percent), Germany (11.8 percent), Poland (9.2 percent), Italy (7.2 percent) and the United Kingdom (5.7 percent), TASR wrote, quoting the Statistics Office as its source.

Southern Slovakia also feels minor earthquake centred in Hungary

Southern Slovakia felt a minor earthquake on the evening of January 29 that had its epicentre in Hungary, the Sme daily wrote on its website that day.

Rental plan proposed for airport

THE STATE has taken its latest step towards developing a new model for the operation of Bratislava Airport, which five years ago came within a hair’s breadth of privatisation. It is now clear that M.R. Štefánik Airport in Slovakia’s capital will not be privatised during the term of the Iveta Radičová government, at least according to recent statements by state officials.

Twenty apply for top job at RTVS

THE PARLIAMENTARY Committee for Culture and Media has received 20 applications for the job of head of the public-service broadcaster Radio and Television of Slovakia (RTVS). RTVS was created on January 1 by the merger of Slovak Radio (SRo) and Slovak Television (STV). The deadline for applications was midnight on January 25; three of the applications arrived after that.

Question mark remains over Metropolis

THE FATE of the grand Metropolis project, a multi-functional complex planned for a 30-hectare plot near Bratislava, remains unclear. Last December Slovakia’s parliament changed the law that had given projects of this kind preferential tax treatment. The developer of Metropolis, Trigranit, said at the time that it needed time to analyse the new situation. The developer was expected to have benefited from the preferential legislation because a large casino, managed by the biggest casino operator in the world, was an integral part of the Metropolis complex.

Marathon bowlers set new record

ON SATURDAY December 16 at exactly 17:05 bowlers at the House of Sport in Galanta started their attempt to set a world record and become the biggest bowling tournament ever held.

Christmas in Slovakia!

Liberation, not punishment

SVERŽOV, a small village near Bardejov numbering fewer than 600 souls, will become an ‘e-pay laboratory’ this summer. The 20 beneficiaries of social allowances who live in the village will get their allowances on e-pay cards rather than in cash. The Slovak Spectator spoke to Pavol Ceľuch, the mayor of Sveržov, about the project.

Diaľnice

BY LISTENING to what Smer leader Robert Fico says, you would think he was a fully-fledged communist: “Everyone will probably agree that the speedy construction of highways and the financing of health care are vital public interests, which override any interest of the individual.”

Licences for games of chance

Licences for games of chance and other similar games issued by the Finance Ministry as of January 1, 2011

Gaming hit by economic downturn

WOMEN and men in elegant evening clothes surrounding a roulette table in a casino, or a group of fans watching a sports match on TV in a betting shop, or those sitting on stools behind slot machines in a pub: what do they have in common? A passion for games of chance. Slovaks like gambling and, had it not been for the economic crisis, it is thought that the amount of money that Slovaks spent on various kinds of gambling would have continued to soar over the past two years.

MP departs KDH

THE UNEXPLAINED issues and alleged scandals swirling around Bratislava’s former mayor, Andrej Ďurkovský, have proved unbearable for his party, resulting in something of a velvet break-up between the Christian Democratic Movement (KDH) and its long-time member, who was elected last year as an MP for the party. Ďurkovský is the first MP in this parliamentary term to leave his party caucus and become an independent, but he has promised to remain faithful to the ruling centre-right coalition. Observers note that his departure does not mark the end of the story.

Two Fico-era laws struck down by court

SLOVAKIA’S Constitutional Court delivered two major rulings in a single day on January 26. It decided that legislation passed by the last government prohibiting private health insurers from paying dividends to their shareholders or deciding what to do with their profits violates Slovakia’s constitution. In the second case the Constitutional Court ruled that an amendment to Slovakia’s highway construction legislation that permitted the state to begin building highways on privately-owned land before the land expropriation process is completed – also the work of the previous government – is unconstitutional.

Democracy gets an average grade

THE QUALITY of democracy in Slovakia improved in the second half of 2010, according to the independent Institute for Public Affairs (IVO). For the first time since 2008, the overall quarterly grade it awards for the level of democracy in the country, as judged by the institute’s Barometer survey, dropped below 3.

E-pay: help or hindrance?

SOME of those who depend on social benefits from the state might soon have to learn to live with less cash in their pockets. Five villages in eastern Slovakia will this summer trial a new e-pay system which the Labour Ministry believes could become an effective tool against loan-sharking – or usury, as it is still referred to in Slovakia – and poverty.

Heating company director sacked

THE DIRECTOR of the Zvolenská Teplárenská heating company, Juraj Králik, nominated by the Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) party, will be summarily sacked, SaS chairman Richard Sulík told the media on January 25.

Slovaks reach the South Pole

AFTER marching 200 kilometres on skis through the Antarctic environment, four Slovak polar explorers reached the South Pole in early December. Peter Valušiak, Róbert Kukučka, Patrik Tkáč and Pavol Barabáš had to contend with – among other things – temperatures around minus 40°C that are typical for the beginning of Arctic summer, said Hana Vítková of the K2 Studio to the TASR newswire. She added that the explorers’ travel was made more difficult by huge snowdrifts and the high altitude – 3,300 metres above sea level.