Some borders start opening ahead of the summer season (news digest)

This is your overview of news from Slovakia from June 3, 2020.

Hospital visits allowed again

Three new coronavirus cases recorded in Slovakia after Tuesday's testing.
People are allowed to visit patients in hospitals or clients in residential social care facilities as of Wednesday, the Health Ministry informed.

People will be free to cross borders between Slovakia and the Czech Republic as of midnight, June 4. The unrestricted regime at the borders between Slovakia and the Czech Republic will then come into force.

Citizens of ten EU states, including Slovakia, are no longer required to prove their reason for entering Croatia due to the good epidemiologic situation in their homelands. The rule also applies to nationals of other countries who are residents in Slovakia, the Croatian Interior Ministry told The Slovak Spectator.
Austria is also opening its borders with neighbouring countries, with the exception of Italy.

Peter Pellegrini said at a press conference that he and Fico are further miles away from each other. He suggested that he will announce his decision about staying or leaving Smer within “days or weeks”. (TASR)

As of December 31, 2019, Slovakia has completely implemented seven out of the 16 anti-corruption recommendations issued by the GRECO group under the Council of Europe, the group wrote in its report.

Journalists Pavla Holcová, Arpád Soltész, and Eva Kubániová from the Investigative Centre of Ján Kuciak have won the 2020 WJP Anthony Lewis Prize for Exceptional Rule of Law Journalism. The trio was awarded the prize for reporting on the murder of their friend and colleague, the 27-year-old journalist Ján Kuciak, and his fiancée, Martina Kušnírová, the website reads. The winners wrote on their Facebook page that they were going to use most of the financial rewards for the centre's work.

Investigations of crimes take a long time and are accompanied by unnecessary delays, the non-governmental organisation Fair-play Alliance (AFP) claimed. “We are afraid that there is a vicious circle: there is no data about fact, there are regular delays in the investigation and responsible people may pretend the problem does not exist,” said Peter Kunder, director of the Fair-Play Alliance.
Almost 40,000 doses of methamphetamine that would be worth about €150,000 on the black market were detained during the Putika action by the police in the Bratislava borough of Petržalka. (TASR)

Drivers might be able to start using the R7 dual carriageway by the end of June, Transport Minister Andrej Doležal said. Three sections are planned to open by then: the R7 parts between Ketelec, Dunajská Lužná, Šamorín and Holice and parts of the 30-kilometre-long D4 highway Ketelec - Rovinka. (SITA)
After the anti-pandemic measures partially lifted in the country, the Bratislava Airport recorded an increased demand for business flights.
According to the latest Eurostat data, Slovakia's unemployment rate grew faster than both the eurozone and the EU average in April, increasing from 5.6 percent in March to 6.8 percent.
If an employee had the right to refuse work on Sundays, nearly seven out of 10 respondents would see such a rule as a good thing, the recent Focus poll has shown.