First person to be jabbed with Sputnik V next week

This is the Tuesday, June 1, 2021 edition of Today in Slovakia.

In today's digest:

No limitations apply when travelling to Czechia for a day
Discussions on abortion will return to parliament on June
Registration for Sputnik V vaccination is open now

Czechia opens for one-day visits from Slovakia

Prague (source: Unsplash)

People travelling to the Czech Republic from Slovakia for less than 24 hours will have an easier access to the country.

They will not be required to fill in a registration form, or self-isolate and subsequently take a PCR test to end the quarantine.

However, stricter rules still apply when people travel to the Czech Republic for more than one day.

Abortion ban returns to parliament

Martin Čepček (source: TASR)

Seven months since the last proposal on limiting access to abortions was discussed in the parliament, two proposals to this effect have been submitted for the discussion again.

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One came from the far-right Kotlebovci – People's Party Our Slovakia (ĽSNS), the other one from Martin Čepček, who made it to the parliament on the OĽaNO slate, but his membership in the party has been suspended.

Both proposals aim to ban the abortion entirely, with the only exception given to the cases when an unborn child might be handicapped, the life of a mother is threatened, or when the pregnancy results from violent crimes.

They are to be discussed at the June parliamentary session. The last time abortion law was in parliament, it did not pass by one vote.

Registration for Sputnik is on

(source: TASR)

The Health Ministry has kept its promise and launched registration for the vaccination with unregistered Russian vaccine Sputnik V on June 1. The very first person is expected to be administered the vaccine on June 7.

Sputnik V will be administered in eight towns, one in each Slovak region. Health Minister Vladimír Lengvarský (OĽaNO nominee) estimated that 80,000 people will be interested in the vaccination. Slovakia has doses for 100,000 people.

At the same time, it will soon be possible to register children aged 12-15 for the vaccination with vaccine by Pfizer/BioNTech, as Lengvarský has confirmed. The registration is excepted to be launched in a week, following a pilot testing of the system.

If Slovakia has some vaccines left, it will donate them to other countries, Lengvarský said, mentioning Ukraine and the Balkan countries.

“Until the vaccination rate does not reach 70 percent, we have no reason to talk about donating vaccines,” he said. He would like to see the vaccination rate at 70 percent by the end of summer.

Picture of the day

Slovakia has made it to the play off at 2021 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship after eight years. Still, it lost its last match in the preliminary round, being defeated 3:7 by the Czech Republic.

(source: TASR)

Feature story for today

When researcher Silvia Letavajová asked her respondents how they defined themselves, the answers were most often Slovaks, Slavs, people who speak Slovak, Europeans, white and Christian.

“People with the same or similar characteristics were viewed as acceptable but if there was a significant distance in either of those traits, respondents would consider [such a person] unacceptable,” she explained.

In other news

President Zuzana Čaputová will accept the resignation of Agriculture Minister Ján Mičovský only after the name of his successor is revealed. She expects this to happen next week.
A total of 28 regular flights are scheduled to be dispatched from Bratislava airportduring the summer season launched on June 1. Most of them will be operated by Irish low-cost airline Ryanair, and there will be several charter flights on offer.
Za Ľudí chair Veronika Remišová removed Roman Krpelan from the post of the party's general manager. Some chairmanship members claim that with the changes, she aims to secure a majority support before the voting on summoning an assembly of the party.
PM Eduard Heger has a new spokesperson: former journalist Ľubica Janíková, who worked as a reporter at the private broadcaster TV Markíza.
Skalica-based boiler manufacturer Protherm Production plans to invest€7 million in expanding the production of indoor heat pump units as well as storage this year.
SkyToll will supply the system of highway stickers to the Slovenian company DARS, with the two having signed a contract already. The tender was accompanied by suspicions that recently deceased Petr Kellner had been trying to influence the procedure.
German company Hella will close down its smallest plant in Slovakia, situated in Bratislava where interior lights for cars are produced. Instead, it will increase the capacity of its plant in Trenčín.