(source: SME.sk / Hej,ty)
Good evening. The Tuesday, November 9 edition of Today in Slovakia is ready with the main news of the day in less than five minutes. We wish you a pleasant read.
ELA opens its headquarters in Bratislava
ELA headquarters (source: TASR)
PM Eduard Heger and the European Commissioner for Jobs and Social Rights, Nicolas Schmit, ceremoniously opened the headquarters of the European Labour Authority (ELA) on Landererova Street in Bratislava on Tuesday.
"Today is a big day for Slovakia and the European Union," said Prime Minister Eduard Heger.
According to him, the fact that Slovakia became the headquarters of the ELA is no coincidence. Labour mobility is a widespread phenomenon in Slovakia, as Slovaks used to leave abroad to seek a better life in the past as well as in the present day.
As ELA Executive Director Cosmin Boiangiu said, the agency represents a shared commitment to ensure fair and efficient labour market mobility across the European Union. According to him, the ELA will be proactive in ensuring mobility on the labour market in the Union.
Easier measures for vaccinated and recovered people
PM Eduard Heger (source: SITA)
The coalition has agreed that vaccinated people and those who have recovered from Covid-19 will be able to visit restaurants and accommodation facilities in black-tier districts.
PM Eduard Heger wrote on Facebook that compliance with measures will be regularly checked.
"I believe that the operations will be wise and not risk harsh penalties for circumventing duties. This means that they will not let unvaccinated people inside," said Heger.
The coalition proposes an obligation for the operator and organiser to prevent persons who refuse to show a Covid pass or prove their identity from entering facilities or mass events.
The Public Health Authority and the police will have new rights, either to impose a fine on the spot or to close the establishment. If a person offends a health professional or forges a Covid pass, the fine will increase to €1,000.
More coronavirus and vaccination news
AstraZeneca vaccines against Covid-19 (source: AP/TASR)
4,958 people were newly diagnosed as Covid positive out of 19,537 PCR tests performed on Monday. The number of people in hospitals has increased to 2,405 people. 45 more deaths were reported on Monday. The vaccination rate is at 45.88 percent, 2,523,310 people having received the first dose of the vaccine. More stats on Covid-19 in Slovakia here.
Košice and the surroundings of Košice will be in the black-tier from next week, the city announced.
Families in Slovakia are either vaccinated or unvaccinated, shows the recent How Are You Slovakia? poll conducted by the Slovak Academy of Sciences, MNFORCE and Seesame communication agencies. In almost 40 percent of households all members older than 18 are vaccinated against Covid and in 30 percent of households nobody in the family is vaccinated.
Beds for patients with Covid-19 on lung ventilators are 100 percent occupied in hospitals of the Žilina Region. The overall capacity of beds is filled to more than 80 percent. Hospitals have been transporting critically-ill Covid patients to other regions of Slovakia for two weeks now.
From Wednesday, all hospitals, including those in the Bratislava region, will be reprofiling beds in the third stage for Covid-19, said Kamil Száz, state secretary of the Health Ministry. At this stage, other medical interventions are severely limited. Száz added that the ministry sent monoclonal antibodies to 36 centres.
Health Ministry emphasises that the checking of Covid passes and the data it contains is legal, since it is not health documentation. Shops and services do not breach the law by inspecting the pass.
Photo of the day
Polish President Andrzej Duda visited Slovakia and met with Slovak President Zuzana Čaputová.
"Relations between our countries have been friendly for a long time, Poland is the third largest partner of Slovakia in terms of foreign trade," said Čaputová. The President discussed the rule of law and the implementation of European law in Poland, migration, the current situation at the border Poland shares with Belarus, climate issues and the pandemic.
(source: TASR)
Feature story for today
This year, talk of Christmas shopping has arrived even earlier, with retailers saying Santa may not be able to make it like he usually does.
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In other news
Academic painter and illustrator Miroslav Cipár died at age 86, his family stated. He was not only an artist, but also an important figure during the Velvet Revolution.
In September 2021, total exports of goods amounted to €7 billion, with a year-on-year drop by 5.9 percent. The total imports of goods increased by 6.5 percent to €7.1 billion.
Slovenian manager Matjaž Gorjup became new president of the packaging and paper company Mondi SCP. He previously worked for the Italian printing company Viappiani Printing. He replaced Bernhard Peschek in early November. (TASR)
Salary growth in Slovakia is lagging behind other countries in the region. While in 2000 the net nominal wages of Slovaks along with the Czechs were the second highest after Slovenes, they are currently among the lowest. In the last 20 years Slovak wages have grown the slowest compared to the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Slovenia, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. This follows from a recent study by the Center for Public Policy, which compares the success of the transformation of post-communist countries in terms of wage growth after 2000.
The legendary carmaker Tatra will produce vehicles in Slovakia again. Apart from passenger cars, it will produce specialised lorries in Trenčín, where it plans to employ 150 people in two years.
By mid-October this year, almost 110,000 entrepreneurs in Slovakia had submitted income tax returns with zero or negative tax liability. Thus, they paid no income tax to the state coffers for 2020. According to the consulting company Dun & Bradstreet, this represents 46 percent of the total number of companies that submitted a tax return in the given period.
Do not miss on Spectator.sk today
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