(source: SME.sk / Hej,ty)
Good evening. The Tuesday, February 15 edition of Today in Slovakia is ready with the main news of the day in less than five minutes.
Prepare for blocked border crossings
Illustrative stock photo (source: SITA)
Slovak hauliers went on strike after they blocked one lane of Rožňavská Street in Bratislava on Monday.
News website tvnoviny.sk reported that the hauliers are ready to block more border crossings in the upcoming days.
Hauliers want to bring attention to the problems their sector faces. Among their demands is the adjustments of fuel prices, similarly to Poland and Hungary, a further decrease of the road toll, a refund of the consumption tax from fuels but also a lower price of toll payment.
Slovak economy grew 1.4 percent of GDP in 4Q 2021
Illustrative stock photo (source: SME)
The gross domestic product (GDP) at constant prices grew by 1.4 percent y-o-y in the fourth quarter of 2021. Adjusted for seasonal effects, GDP increased by 1.1 percent y-o-y, and 0.3 percent q-o-q, according to the Statistics Office.
The value of GDP at current prices in the fourth quarter stood at 25.6 billion euros, up 5.2 percent y-o-y, as follows from the Statistics Office's flash estimate of the GDP for the fourth quarter of 2021.
Despite the ongoing pandemic, the Slovak economy recorded y-o-y growth,
driven mainly by domestic demand. GDP values reached almost the level seen in the pre-crisis period of 2019 also in the fourth quarter of 2021, similarly to the previous quarter. In the fourth quarter of 2020, the country's GDP fell by
1.8 percent in annual terms.
Coronavirus and vaccination news
Omicron brought a surge in new positive cases. (source: TASR)
18,896 people were newly diagnosed as Covid positive out of 34,073 PCR tests performed on Monday. The number of people in hospitals is 2,387 people. 18 more deaths were reported on Monday. The vaccination rate is at 51.16 percent, 2,814,855 people having received the first dose of the vaccine. More stats on Covid-19 in Slovakia here.
The Omicron variant is pushing out Delta variant, reported the Public Health Authority based on the running results of sequencing in February. Hygienists stated that the share of the Omicron variant in samples was 90 percent in the first half of February. These are usually week-old samples.
The registration for vaccination with the Novavax vaccine was launched on Tuesday. Slovakia expects delivery of the first doses of Novavax by the end of February.
There are several changes in the anti-pandemic measures linked to the situation in Ukraine. The updated version reads, for example, that people who are crossing the border from a neighbouring state in fear of armed conflict do not have to register in the eHranica system.
Photo of the day
Slovakia beats Germany in a men's qualification round hockey game at the 2022 Winter Olympics on Tuesday in Beijing. Slovakia moves on to meet the USA in tomorrow’s quarter-final.
(source: TASR/AP)
Podcast for today
Svidník is better known as a place of harsh WWII battles, but this eastern Slovak town is also home to the oldest ethnic museum in Slovakia.
The Ukrainian minority fought for its own museum from the 19th century until it opened in 1956. Today, the Museum of Ukrainian Culture has three branches scattered around the town: a museum, a gallery, and an open-air museum.
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In other news
The prosecutor filed charges in the Mýtnik (Toll Collector) case for six defendants in five offenses. The indictment concerns economic and corrupt crime. Jozef Brhel, for example, is accused in the case, and the key witnesses are Michal Suchoba and František Imrecze.
A commemorative event will be held in Bratislava at Palugyay Palace on Wednesday at 16:00 in honour of the late former minister of foreign affairs Eduard Kukan, the Foreign Affairs Ministry informed.
Debt generated by people in Slovakia has continued rising despite the pandemic.The total debt of Slovak households currently represents 47 percent of what the country’s economy produces in one year, or 77 percent of households’ annual disposable income, according to the National Bank of Slovakia (NBS), the country’s central bank.
President Zuzana Čaputová, PM Eduard Heger and Speaker of Parliament Boris Kollár discussed a situation about conflict in Ukraine and its consequences to Slovakia in Presidential Palace on Tuesday. Any more detailed information and conclusions of the meeting are not known.
Slovak national carrier ZSSK will not dispatch most of the commercial IC trains according to schedule as of February 27. The company justified the decision with the lasting anti-pandemic measures and thus a lower number of travellers. More specifically, five IC trains with the numbers 520, 522, 523, 524 and 525 between Bratislava and Košice will not be dispatched and IC train 521 will be not dispatched as of February 26. IC trains 44 and 45 between Košice and Vienna are operating and will continue to operate.
Slovak diplomat Radomír Boháč died on Tuesday after a serious illness, announced Minister of Foreign Affairs Ivan Korčok (SaS nominee) at the 20th Annual Conference on Foreign and European Policy of the Slovak Republic. The ambassador served as the head of the Permanent Mission of the Slovak Republic to the UN based in Vienna.
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