(source: SME.sk / Hej,ty)
Good evening. Here is the Friday, October 14 edition of Today in Slovakia – the main news of the day in less than five minutes.
For weekend events and news on travel and culture in Slovakia, see the latest edition of our Spectacular Slovakia newsletter.
Draft state budget for 2023 gets cabinet approval
The cabinet approved the state budget for 2023. (source: TASR)
The cabinet approved the draft budget bill on Friday, October 14. The deadline for sending the budgetary legislation to parliament is October 15. It includes draft state budgets for 20230-2025 and general government budgets for 2023-2025.
Prime Minister Eduard Heger (OĽaNO) said after the cabinet session that his government's state budget proposal for the following years is a budget for helping people. He believes that next year’s budget will receive support in parliament.
“Those numbers are self-explanatory,” Heger said, as quoted by the SITA newswire. “We should put away the political shirts.”
Finance Minister Igor Matovič added that the 2023 budget would create room for the government to react to the ongoing, significant increase in energy prices.
Matovič noted, as quoted by the Denník N daily, that the government would fight for every single vote in parliament, given that the recent departure of the SaS party has left the ruling coalition without a majority in parliament.
“Only a cynic and an anti-social would not vote for such a budget,” Matovič said, as quoted by the TASR newswire. “Only a person who wants to harm people and abuse the situation would not want to help people when they need it the most.”
Police ponder terrorism charges over shootings at Bratislava gay bar
The place where two young men were killed on Zámocká Street in Bratislava on Wednesday. (source: SME - Jozef Jakubčo)
The police will prosecute Wednesday's attack at a Bratislava gay bar in which two people were murdered as a serious crime of premeditated murder committed for a specific motive, namely hatred of a group of persons and individuals for their real or perceived sexual orientation.
So far, the investigation suggests that the two victims killed in the shooting on Zámocká Street in Bratislava were not known to the gunman, Ľubomír Daňko, director of the National Criminal Agency (NAKA), said on Friday, October 14.
The suspect, a 19-year-old student from Bratislava identified as Juraj K., shot dead two people and injured another in the Tepláreň gay bar in the centre of the Slovak capital in the evening of Wednesday, October 12.
Daňko did not rule out that, based on evidence still being collected, the act might be reclassified as terrorism.
Today, a march to condemn hatred against LBGT+ people organised by the Inakosť initiative will start at 17:00 on Zámocká Street. The event will continue at 17:30 at SNP Square with speeches. President Zuzana Čaputová, Prime Minister Eduard Heger, Bratislava Mayor Matúš Vallo and others will attend.
Feature story of today
The Košice sculptor whose work moved and touched London
Sculptor Maria Bartuszová in her studio. (source: Tate Modern)
Maria Bartuszová never quite ventured out of Košice, her studio, her garden. When she was photographed working, she wore the smile of a person reconciled to limits of their being and place in the world.
At the time she was creative, no one really understood her and she did not even expect to be appreciated one day. This did not occur in her lifetime.
However, 26 years after her death there is a solo exhibition of her work at Britain's Tate Modern gallery, which, save for conceptual artist Roman Ondák, no other Slovak has been able to achieve.
More stories on Spectator.sk:
ATTACK ON LGBT+ PEOPLE: Tepláreň was a home, a safe space for the LGBT+ people in Bratislava.
RODEO: It ain't my first rodeo. Only my first in Slovakia
NATURE: Nick Thorpe, a British journalist and documentary maker for the BBC, crossed the Low Tatras and rafted the Hron River to describe Slovakia's nature as faithfully as possible.
CIRCULAR ECONOMY: Bratislava gets its first re-use centre, Kolo.
In other news
The Bratislava Regional Court on Friday, October 14 overturned the verdict of the Bratislava I District Court, which previously opted not to remand in custody Dušan Dědeček, who ran over and killed five people at a bus stop while driving drunk on October 2. The appeal court thus upheld an appeal filed against the original ruling by the prosecutor in the case, albeit only partially.
The cabinet approved a revised draft amendment to the state budget for the current year, increasing revenues as well as expenditures by €1.5 billion.
President Zuzana Čaputová is considering submitting a proposal for disciplinary proceedings against General Prosecutor Maroš Žilinka. The reason is that he spread Russian propaganda. “It is a sensitive matter, I have processed documents and information, and I just have to evaluate them very sensitively and seriously,” said Čaputová. At the same time, she is dissatisfied with the way Žilinka reacted to the double murder on Zámocká street.
Germany and 13 other NATO allies, including Slovakia, want to jointly purchase air defence systems. It is a joint anti-missile defence project, which German Chancellor Olaf Scholz talked about in Prague in August. European countries that want to participate in the defence system against ballistic missiles and other threats from the air as proposed by the German chancellor, signed the statement during the meeting of defence ministers at NATO headquarters in Brussels on October 13. (ČTK)
The automotive industry association ZAP estimates that production of cars in Slovakia could drop slightly this year. Automakers in Slovakia assembled 1,030,000 cars vehicles in 2021, representing an annual increase of about 4 percent.
The current, controversial toll system operated by SkyToll will be operational until the end of 2023, with the National Highway Company (NDS) signing an amendment to the contract for this period. This will adjust the conditions for the gradual shutdown of the system; new registrations into the system will no longer be possible from July. However, at the end of this year, the offer for carriers will be expanded to include providers of the European EETS toll.
Prices of goods and services grew 14.2 percent y-o-y in September. It was the highest inflation rate in more than 22 years. However, a slight slowdown in price growth can be seen since April, the Statistics Office wrote.
The social security provider Sociálna Poisťovňa will increase pensions by 11.8 percent from January 1, 2023 in line with an automatic mechanism based on inflation.
The city of Poprad won the title the European Capital of Sport 2023, which is awarded annually by the European Capitals and Cities of Sport Federation (ACES Europe).
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Picture of the day
The 700-year-old Dragon Oak near Lozorno is Slovakia's Tree of the Year. (source: Courtesy of Ekopolis)
The 700-year-old Dragon Oak from near Lozorno won the title Tree of the Year. In the spring, it will represent Slovakia in the European Tree of the Year competition.
Anniversary of the week
In samizdat publishing, not even the editorial team knew where the publication was printed or who the middleman between the editorial team and the printing house was. (source: Sme archive - Gabriel Kuchta)
Slovakia marked the Day of Samizdat. Samizdat, from the Russian word meaning 'self-publishing', was a form of dissident activity across the socialist Eastern Bloc in which individuals reproduced censored and underground makeshift publications and passed the documents from reader to reader in secret.
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