GDP growth nears pre-crisis levels

SLOVAKIA will continue crossing itsfingers for continued economicvigour in its biggest trading partner,Germany, which surpassed expecta-tions by recording 4.8 percent GDPgrowth in the first quarter of 2011.While still slightly lagging Germangrowth, Slovakia also generated somevery optimistic economic numbers –close to the rate of growth registeredbefore the financial and economiccrisis. The International Monetary

Fund (IMF) predicted that the Slovakeconomy will be among the fastestgrowing economies of the EuropeanUnion over the next two years.

Slovakia’s GDP grew by 3.5 per-cent year-on-year in the first quarterof 2011, similar to its pace during thefinal three months of 2010. On a sea-sonally-adjusted basis, the Slovakeconomy grew by 1.0 percent fromthe last quarter of 2010, the SlovakStatistics Office reported in its flashestimate released on May 15. Thoughthe Statistics Office has not publisheddetailed information on the strongestgrowth areas, economic experts donot expect any big surprises.

“We assume that growth hasagain been fuelled mainly by for-eign demand,” Boris Fojtík, ananalyst with Tatra Banka, stated,adding that large investmentsare also in the pipeline for Slov-akia and that these investmentswill likely be positive items whenthe detailed report on GDPgrowth is released.

Ľubomír Koršňák, an analystwith UniCredit Bank Slovakia,noted as well that “Slovakia’s mostsignificant business partners havebeen doing well.”

See UP pg 4

SSELECT FOREX RATES€ benchmark as of May 19

CANADA CAD 1.38CZECH REP. CZK 24.47RUSSIA RUB 39.94GREAT BRITAIN GBP 0.88

HUNGARY HUF 267.97JAPAN JPY 116.83POLAND PLN 3.93USA USD 1.43

NEWS

Highways boss firedTransport Minister JánFigeľ fired National High-way Company boss AlanSitár on May 12, shortlyafter allegations that he hadapproved overpriced pur-chases of training and con-sultancy.

pg 2

Transpetrol leakLeaked US diplomatic cablessuggest the US governmentadvised Slovakia on its re-purchase of Transpetrol,but former economy minis-ter Ľubomír Jahnátek hasdisputed the reports.

pg 3

OPINION

The Radičová CodePolitical conspiracy theorieshave a certain irresistiblecharm and Smer boss RobertFico is not the kind of politi-cian who can resist them,especially when they guar-antee widespread publicity.

pg 5

BUSINESS FOCUS

Working in AustriaAs of May 1, Slovaks are nolonger restricted fromworking in Austria andGermany. But analystswarn that many hoping towork there lack good Ger-man or other needed skills.

pg 6

Glimmers of hopeThe Slovak economy isshowing clear signs of re-covery. This has been reflec-ted in the labour marketand in more business forhuman resources compan-ies, say HR industry ex-perts.

pg 7

CULTURE

Books about SlovakiaOwen R. Johnson reviewsanother clutch of recentacademic works focused onSlovakia and its historicaldevelopment.

pg 11

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen visited Slovakia on May 19. At a press conference at the Foreign Af-fairs Ministry he made statements directed at Russia, saying he hopes for good relations with that country andwants cooperation between Russia and NATO on the latter's missile defence shield project. While in Bratislava,Rasmussen met Slovak government representatives including Prime Minister Iveta Radičová (above) . Photo: ČTK

Radičová stays asTrnka fails again

DOBROSLAV Trnka, the formergeneral prosecutor whose bid toretain his position has been sup-ported by the opposition Smerparty, failed to secure the job ina secret ballot of MPs on May 17.By rejecting Trnka, whose previ-ous term as general prosecutorelapsed on February 2 this year,ruling coalition MPs apparentlyheeded a threat by Prime Minis-ter Iveta Radičová to resign ifTrnka, about whom she has ex-pressed strong reservations, wereto prevail.

While the ruling coalition cel-ebrated the outcome of the vote,calling it good news for Slovakia,Smer alleged that MPs were in-

structed how to vote, despite in-dividual ballots supposedly beingconfidential. Smer leader RobertFico claimed that a strategy,which he dubbed ‘Radičová’sCode’, had been used to influencethe voting of coalition MPs.

Trnka, the only candidate,won the support of 70 of the 150deputies present; 17 voted againsthim; 29 abstained from votingand there were 34 invalid votes. Asimple majority of MPs present –76 – would have been necessary to

secure his victory. Trnka made noimmediate comment after thevote but Fico encouraged him toonce again challenge the conductof the secret ballot at the Consti-tutional Court. The May 17 ballotwas a re-run of a previous secretvote held in December which wasruled unconstitutional by thecourt after a challenge by Trnka.

“The government in its pro-gramme defined its goals as beingto increase the trust of citizens inthe rule of law, increase the en-forceability of law, and fightagainst corruption and cronyism,”Radičová said in a statement.

See VOTE pg 2

Vol. 17, No. 20 Monday, May 23, 2011 - Sunday, May 29, 2011

FOCUSof this issue

On sale nowOn sale now FOCUSof this issue

HUMAN RESOURCES

‘Cannibal's’likely victimsfound buried

THE SWISS citizen whose call to policeled to the apprehension of an allegedcannibal in eastern Slovakia earlier thismonth may not have been the man’s firstintended victim.

Evidence left behind by the‘cannibal’, whose story shocked Slovakiaand attracted media attention world-wide, led Slovak police on May 17 to awoodland grave containing the remainsof two people who they believe wereprobably his previous victims.

On May 10 an undercover teamswooped on an area near Kysak, a villagenear Košice, after learning that a localman was planning to kill and eat a Swisscitizen with whom he had made an on-line pact. The police operation was not acomplete success: the suspect, later re-vealed to be Matej Čurko of nearby Sokoľ,was armed and both he and a police of-ficer were seriously injured in the ensu-ing shoot-out. The suspect died of his in-juries two days later.

See BODIES pg 3

Coalitionunrest over

'no' for Paluda

JUST AS tension within the coalition wasrising as a result of the fraught selectionof the next general prosecutor (thoughthat somewhat eased after a vote on May17; see main story), another disputednomination has generated yet moretrouble. The post of the head of the Na-tional Security Office (NBÚ), Slovakia’smain security vetting agency, remainsvacant despite the fact that Freedom andSolidarity (SaS) has already proposed twocandidates. Observers warn that contin-ued failure to fill the post could promptmore tension and risk further reducingtrust among the coalition parties.

It had seemed that nothing stood inthe way of the most recent SaS nominee,Supreme Court judge Peter Paluda. Aswell as his long record as a senior judge,he has served as Slovakia’s representativeto the EU's justice organisation, Eurojust,and is a staunch critic of controversialSupreme Court head Štefan Harabin.

As well as SaS, two other parties in thefour-party coalition, Most-Híd and theChristian Democratic Movement (KDH),had said they supported his nomination –and Prime Minister Iveta Radičová, of theSlovak Democratic and Christian Union(SDKÚ), said Paluda was an acceptablecandidate for her as well.

See NBÚ pg 9

BY MICHAELA TERENZANISpectator staff

BY BEATA BALOGOVÁSpectator staff

BY BEATA BALOGOVÁSpectator staff

Putin visits Slovakia, meets PM

HIGH on the agenda in thetalks between Slovak PrimeMinister Iveta Radičová andher Russian counterpartVladimir Putin on May 13 weresupplies of Russian naturalgas and the ‘letter of invita-tion’ sent in 1968 that led tothe Warsaw Pact invasion ofSlovakia, the SITA newswirereported.

Radičová reported thatPutin gave assurances therewill be no repeat problemswith Russian natural gas sup-plies and that he considers thediversification of natural gassupply routes to be very im-portant in preventing a simil-ar situation to that which oc-curred in 2009. The primeministers also spoke about theDruzhba crude-oil pipelineand other new energy routesunder preparation.

Prime Minister Radičováalso raised the issue of the‘invitation letter’ sent to Mo-scow in 1968 and said thatPutin understood her argu-ments and is willing toprovide specific documents,if they exist, to Slovakia. Theprime ministers also dis-cussed the broad-gauge rail-way project that is underconsideration, nuclear en-ergy and its future,Slovakia’s cyclotron centreand military technologiesand licences.

During his brief visit toBratislava Putin also lobbieda meeting of the Interna-tional Ice Hockey Federationin favour of his country's bidto hold the Ice Hockey WorldChampionship in 2016. Rus-sia was later given the rightto hold the competition.

Nurses present petition to parliament

NURSES and midwives wear-ing black gathered in front ofSlovakia’s parliament build-ing on May 17 to draw MPs’attention to the workingconditions and low salaries ofmedical staff. A petition titled'If we don't care aboutourselves, who will care foryou?', signed by 240,000people over the past twomonths, was presented toSpeaker of ParliamentRichard Sulík.

Mária Levyová, the pres-ident of the Slovak Chamber ofNurses and Midwives (SKSPA)told journalists that thenurses were very disappoin-ted with Sulík's reaction. Shesaid Sulík started the meetingby telling the nurses that thebus they had travelled in wasblocking the access road to theparliament building.

“It isn't possible to reactso light-heartedly to the de-

mands of the Slovak people,”Levyová stated, as quoted bythe TASR newswire, addingthat she found Sulík's beha-viour to be arrogant.

Viliam Novotný, thechairman of the parliament’shealth committee, also metthe representatives and as-sured them that their situ-ation would definitely betaken seriously, the TASRnewswire wrote. Novotnýsaid MPs understand the de-mands of nurses and mid-wives and will make suffi-cient efforts to make surethat the petition does not endwith parliament only ac-knowledging it and doingnothing more.

The demands in the peti-tion include, for example, anincrease in the hourly wagefrom the current rate of €4.50per hour or less, and for re-tirement at the age of 58.

Alcohol and cannabis use surveyed

STUDENTS at primaryschools are drinking alcoholmore often than in pastyears and a significantnumber of 15-year-olds ad-mitted that they hadsmoked cannabis and that itis not difficult to obtain inSlovakia. These are some ofthe findings from an inter-national study researchingthe behaviour of pupils aged11, 13 and 15, the TASRnewswire reported.

This particular study waspart of the Health Behaviourin School-aged Children (HB-SC) project conducted in col-laboration with the WorldHealth Organization’s Re-gional Office for Europe.

It collected data fromover 4,000 respondents in thethree age categories in Slov-akia. According to the study,one fifth of the Slovak boysand one tenth of the Slovak

girls admitted to having triedcannabis. Slovakia first par-ticipated in the researchstudy in 1993-1994.

As many as 74 percent ofthe respondents who wereage 11 said they had not beenprevented from buying alco-hol because of their age.

The authors of the studystated that alcohol consump-tion was a risk issue in thepopulation of pupils and thatgender differences in alcoholconsumption and tobaccouse had nearly disappeared.

“Four years ago therewere gender differences,now there are none,” saidAndrea Madarasová Geckováof the Košice Institute of So-ciety and Health, whoheaded the HBSC researchteam in Slovakia.

Compiled by Spectator staff

from press reports

Highways chief fired

QUESTIONABLE procurementpractices have led to the dis-missal of National HighwayCompany (NDS) boss AlanSitár. Transport Minister JánFigeľ fired him on May 12shortly after the minister andseveral media outlets receivedanonymous whistle-blowingletters that described al-legedly overpriced purchasesof training and consultingservices that had been ap-proved by Sitár for the state-run firm.

Prime Minister IvetaRadičová praised Figeľ’s moveand said that sacking Sitár wasa difficult but correct decision.Figeľ’s predecessor, ĽubomírVážny, a Smer nominee, saidthe recall did not solve any-thing within the NDS.

Sitár, who was shown thedoor without being offeredany pay-off, said he was dis-appointed and defended thedeals in question.

Figeľ, who is also the lead-er of the Christian DemocraticMovement (KDH), one of the

four governing coalitionparties, said that he re-peatedly checked complaintspertaining to the purchase ofexternal services and “despitethe fact that it was in linewith the law, I did not con-sider it ethical”.

Radičová commentedthat in politics and the man-agement of the state it is notenough to enforce laws: offi-cials’ conduct must also havean ethical dimension, theSITA newswire reported. Sheadded that in the currentpost-crisis period, with theongoing effort to save publicmoney, funds should havenot been handled in the waythey were by the NDS.

The NDS had said earlieron May 12 that it was aboutto cancel some of the dealsand orders, except those per-taining to the constructionof highways which had beenapproved before theamendment to the law onpublic procurement becamevalid on April 1, 2011. Theamendment made publicprocurement rules muchtighter.

See NDS pg 5

BY BEATA BALOGOVÁSpectator staff

VOTE: Fico urges return to courtContinued from pg 1

“Change in the management of theprosecution is one of the key steps to ful-fil these obligations and thus also in-crease the quality of life of citizens for ahealthy and just Slovakia.”

In a surprise move just before thevote, the ruling coalition’s nominee forthe post, Jozef Čentéš, announced onMay 13 that he would not run in thesecret vote. He explained his move bysaying that the vote had been linked toallegations of MPs being blackmailedand bribed and that he did not want tobe part of it any more. He rejected thenotion that anyone had influenced hisdecision.

The complications

Complications around the secret bal-lot emerged after the ruling coalitionfailed on December 2 to have Čentéš se-lected as general prosecutor after at leastsix coalition deputies used the anonym-ity of the secret ballot to vote with theopposition Smer party in favour ofTrnka. Trnka missed out on reselectionby just one vote on that occasion, and thedisloyalty of the coalition MPs openedthe door to speculation about a plot tounseat the prime minister, who hadpromised to resign if Trnka were chosen.

The ruling coalition has gone to con-siderable lengths to turn the previouslysecret ballot method used to select thegeneral prosecutor into a public, recor-ded vote. But the Constitutional Court,in a decision published on April 20 in re-sponse to a case brought by Trnka, ruledthat his constitutional rights had beenviolated during two of the parliament-ary votes last year.

According to the court, the violationhappened when deputies revealed howthey had voted in the secret ballot, byphotographing their ballots or openlydeclaring whom they had supported. Bydoing so, the court found, the deputiesviolated the basic principles of the secretballot and thus Trnka’s rights. As a res-ult, despite a law passed in the interimto make future votes public, MPs heldanother secret ballot.

The ruling coalition declared that theMay 17 vote had been regular and secret.

“The deputies respected the strictermeasures and the vote really wassecret,” the Christian DemocraticMovement’s (KDH) Pavol Hrušovskýsaid, as quoted by the SITA newswire. Headded that there could be no doubt aboutthe vote which would justify a challengeon the grounds that it had violated par-liamentary rules.

The chairman of the Slovak Demo-cratic and Christian Union (SDKÚ),Mikuláš Dzurinda, said he was satisfiedthat parliament had fulfilled the re-quirement defined by the ruling of theConstitutional Court.

Fico spies ‘Radičová’s code’

“All coalition clubs and one factionmarked their ballots in such a way that itwas possible to control how each clubvoted,” Fico said, describing what hecalled ‘Radičová’s code’.

According to Fico, 18 deputies markedtheir ballots diagonally, which corres-ponds to the number of Freedom andSolidarity (SaS) deputies. The OrdinaryPeople faction marked their votes as both‘against’ and ‘abstain’, he said. Membersof the Most-Híd party, according to Fico,marked their ballots horizontally, anddeputies of the KDH voted against Trnka.Fico concluded by saying that SDKÚ MPsabstained, SITA reported.

Fico also said that one extra deputymarked his or her ballot in the sameway as the SDKÚ. He alleged that themechanism employed was only work-able provided Čentéš did not run andthat if he had remained in the race thedeputies would have not been able touse ‘Radičová’s code’.

Smer has called for Trnka to turnagain to the Constitutional Court, withFico suggesting that Trnka should seek apreliminary decision that would ban anopen vote on the job until a ‘regular’secret ballot is held.

The Smer boss has expressed voci-ferous opposition to a public vote for thegeneral prosecutor post, describing it as‘undemocratic’ and even going so far asto suggest that if he were president hewould refuse to appoint a candidate se-lected by means of an open vote.

Meanwhile doubts emerged aboutwhether Čentéš, following his with-

drawal from the secret ballot, would stillhave the support of the whole coalitionin a public vote to select a general pro-secutor. KDH boss Ján Figeľ said thatČentéš could be one of the nominees forthe joint candidate, but KDH MP PavolAbrhan told Slovak Radio that Čentéš’decision to withdraw his candidacyfrom the secret ballot meant he had lostAbrhan’s trust.

Dzurinda on May 18 said that hecould not say if Čentéš would continueto be the joint candidate of the rulingcoalition.

“What I recorded in my head is awide agreement among the ruling coali-tion that our joint candidate is DrČentéš,” Dzurinda said as quoted bySITA. “The SDKÚ respects thisagreement.”

Mesežnikov: Čentéš has a chance

Parliament has meanwhile broken apresidential veto over a change to par-liamentary rules that makes it possibleto select the prosecutor via a public vote.

“I expect the coalition will need afew weeks for the coalition to eitherconfirm Čentéš as their candidate or toselect another,” Grigorij Mesežnikov,president of the Institute for Public Af-fairs think tank, told The Slovak Spec-tator. “After all these experiences andthe circumstances of the secret vote,which have indeed been very bitter andunpleasant, the coalition should learnfrom what has happened and make avery fast decision about a joint candid-ate, Čentéš or someone else.”

Mesežnikov believes that Čentéš stillhas a chance.

“It would be good for them to electthe new general prosecutor fast andnot let Fico turn to the ConstitutionalCourt with his nonsense statements,”Mesežnikov said.

Otherwise, the Constitutional Courtmight again do the same thing and orderthe secret vote to be repeated, he said.

“It was a very scandalous ruling thatthe Constitutional Court issued, but Ibelieve that they could do it again,” saidMesežnikov. “So the coalition shouldn’twaste time and should elect a generalprosecutor immediately after the newvoting rules become effective.”

Alan Sitár Photo: TASR

2 NEWSMay 23 – 29, 2011

Germany and Austriaopen their doors – at last

SLOVAK citizens are now ableto work in Austria and Ger-many under the same condi-tions as local workers afterthe two countries openedtheir labour markets on May 1to citizens from eight mem-ber states in central and east-ern Europe, including Slov-akia. Citizens can now applyfor a job in Austria and Ger-many without requiring awork permit. Reactions inAustria and Germany to thenew freedoms have beenmixed: some worry thatworkers from the east willflood their labour markets;while others rejoice, sayingthat Austria and Germany arein need of a fresh source ofhighly qualified labour.

Austria and Germanywere the last two ‘old’ EUcountries to fully open theirlabour markets to memberswho joined the union in 2004.They maintained labour mar-ket restrictions for the max-imum period of seven yearson eight of the 10 countriesincluding Slovakia thatentered the EU in its biggestenlargement. The only two2004 entrants that did notface restrictions were Cyprusand Malta.

The lifting of restrictionsfinally establishes a single EUlabour market – except for

Romanian and Bulgarian cit-izens, who will see restric-tions lifted in 2014 – allowingworkers to move more easilythroughout member states.

The German and Austrianmedia and observers did notexpect the end of the trans-ition period to have a dramat-ic impact on the situation inthe labour markets in theirtwo countries. The biggestchange will most likely be thefact that tens of thousands ofcitizens of the eight memberstates affected – Slovakia, the

Czech Republic, Poland,Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania,Estonia and Slovenia – whoalready work in Austria andGermany illegally will legal-ise their status.

Observers have stated thatfears of a big influx of mi-grants into the two countriesare unjustified and said thatAustria and Germany have infact lost out by keeping theirmarkets closed for the max-imum possible transitionperiod. Indeed, as early as2007 Austria allowed a partial

opening of its labour marketdue to a lack of skilled labourin some sectors and regions.

Austria and Germany

embrace immigrants

Austria is in need ofskilled workers, mainly dueto its aging population. Theopening of the labour marketwill enhance the opportunit-ies for Austrian companies torecruit qualified workers. Itis estimated that around20,000 to 25,000 people fromthe eight member states willseek employment after theopening of the labour mar-ket, according to AustrianAmbassador to SlovakiaMarkus Wuketich.

“Workers from new EUcountries and Slovakia inparticular are welcome toAustrian companies, sincethey are mostly very skilledand have a good commandof German,” AmbassadorWuketich said, adding thatSlovak employees can befound mainly in the spheresof tourism, industry, med-ical care, agriculture andconstruction.

He said that the generalresponse to the opening ofthe labour market in Austriais positive, with the excep-tion of smaller companies inthe border regions whoseem to be concerned aboutcompetitors from the ‘new’EU countries.

See OPEN pg 9

BY MICHAELATERENZANISpectator staff

Qualified health-care professionals are wanted in Austria.Photo: Sme

Did US adviseover Transpetrol?

AN OIL expert from Texasreportedly gave advice tothe Slovak Economy Min-istry and former ministerĽubomír Jahnátek while thecountry sought in 2006 torepurchase 49 percent of theshares of Transpetrol thatwere owned by an arm ofthe Yukos company, accord-ing to diplomatic dispatchespublished by Wikileaks.

“Advisor Steve Hellmanwas present throughout thenegotiations and providedcritical technical and stra-tegic information to the GOSnegotiating team,” wrotethe US Embassy in Bratis-lava, in a dispatch that wasfirst published by McClatchyNewspapers.

According to the cable,Hellman estimated theprice of the shares at $120million. The embassy notedin the cable to the US StateDepartment that Jahnátekwas careful not to disclosehow high he could go withSlovakia’s offer but thatsources at the Finance Min-istry had revealed thatJahnátek had authority tospend up to $120 million.

In reaction to the pub-lished cable, Jahnátekdenied any cooperation withthe US in buying the Trans-petrol shares from Yukos anddescribed the dispatches as“absolute nonsense”, theSme daily reported.

“It looks as if the US Am-bassador was building a goodposition at his own foreignministry,” Jahnátek saidabout the cables, as quotedby Sme.

He did state that during avisit to the US he met an Un-der Secretary of the StateDepartment who offered as-sistance with the Yukos ne-gotiations but insisted thathe had refused the help. Healso said that he knew Hell-man because he had ar-ranged a meeting severaltimes and wanted to bepresent at the negotiations

but Jahnátek said he also re-fused that offer, Sme wrote.Jahnátek also told Sme thathe was monitored by USsecret agents to find outwhether he wanted Slovakiato own the shares or wantedto sell them to the Russians.

Jahnátek also told Smethat pressure came from theRussian side as well duringthe negotiations to buy theTranspetrol shares.

“Jahnátek is clearly ap-preciative of the inputprovided by Hellman andwill continue to look to himand the US Embassy for in-formation as he faces thechallenges to the deal in thecoming weeks,” the dis-patch, as released byWikiLeaks, states.

The US Embassy in Brat-islava chose not to commenton the dispatches publishedby WikiLeaks. Theembassy’s press attaché,Chase Beamer, told thePravda daily that it is nosecret that the US paid at-tention to energy securityissues and also providedconsultancy to its allies, butadded that his response wasnot directly linked with theinformation released byWikiLeaks.

The Russian governmentcharged MikhailKhodorkovsky, the principalin Yukos Oil, with fraud in2003 and began liquidatingthe company, with the state-owned Gazprom acquiringmany of Yukos’ assets, caus-ing concern in the US thatRussia might have completecontrol over all gas suppliesto Europe, SITA wrote,adding that the UnitedStates was interested in pre-venting this.

The Sme daily explainedthat if Russia acquired theshares of Transpetrol itcould have stopped theplanned connection tobring oil from the Caspianarea and that if Russia hadcontrol over the pipeline inSlovakia it would be veryunlikely to let competingoil flow through it. Sme ad-ded that the Slovak part ofthe Druzhba pipeline has astrategic significance forthe flow of oil from east towest, whether it is Russianoil or Caspian oil, as theSlovak part of the pipelinewill be linked to a plannedpipeline running toSchwechat in Austria.

Ľubomír Jahnátek Photo: Sme - Peter Žákovič

3NEWS May 23 – 29, 2011

BODIES: PC data leads police to graveContinued from pg 1

The injured policeman had recoveredsufficiently by May 17 to be removedfrom an artificial ventilator and to startcommunicating, the TASR newswire re-ported. However, he remained in a seri-ous condition.

Information from Čurko’s computer,which was seized by police from hishouse after he was apprehended, allowedthe police to locate an improvised altarwith a candle, plus various tools such asclamps, ropes and a mattock, in wood-land near Kysak. Nearby they discovereda shallow grave containing two sets offemale human remains, the president ofthe Police Corps, Jaroslav Spišiak, told apress conference on May 17, as reportedby the TASR newswire.

“We have identified a grave in whichwe have found the remains of two femalebodies, buried and covered with plasticwrapping,” Spišiak said, adding that thebodies were missing some parts thatmatch the body parts depicted in imageswhich Čurko had sent by e-mail toSwitzerland.

Girl from Snina might be among dead

One of the bodies was found nakedwhile the other was partly clothed. Thelatter matched the description of a miss-ing 20-year-old girl, Lucia Uchnárová,

from Snina. She had been missing sinceSeptember 2010 and the Slovak mediahad previously reported a possible con-nection between her and Čurko.

The Sme daily reported on May 13that Uchnárová had psychological prob-lems and had attempted suicide in 2008.She apparently made a connection withher murderer after she publicly an-nounced on the internet that she wantedto die, Sme wrote.

The identity of the bodies will be con-firmed by DNA analysis.

Detained man died in hospital

Slovak police were notified about theplanned cannibalism by Interpol. TheSwiss man, who had expressed a desire tobe killed and subsequently eaten, found awilling accomplice in Slovakia throughthe internet and arranged a meeting tocarry out the plan, but lost his nerveshortly before travelling and reported theplan to Swiss police.

Police officers then tracked the e-mail communication between thewould-be human flesh-eater and theSwiss man. According to Spišiak, theSwiss agreed to be killed in woodland.The would-be cannibal was supposed todrug him, stab him in the heart and thenquarter him. His remains were to be hid-den – laced with pepper in order to maskthe scent and prevent animals from find-

ing the body – and subsequently eatenover a period of time.

The intended victim was supposed toarrive in Kysak by train, wearing clothespreviously agreed on with his would-bekiller. Slovak police swapped the Swissman for an agent, who then went to meetthe suspect near Kysak on May 10, asagreed. The agent carried a transmitter toallow other officers to track him.

The shoot-out occurred when a policeteam attempted to arrest the suspect. Theman, who possessed four legally-heldfirearms, pulled out a gun and threatenedto shoot the agent; in response, policesnipers opened fire, hitting him severaltimes. Despite his injuries, he returnedfire and managed to shoot one of the po-lice team members before being subdued.The injured 37-year-old officer’s conditionhad stabilised by the evening of the shoot-ing, although he was reported to be in acritical condition. According to hospitalspokesperson Jaroslava Oravcová, his in-juries required urgent surgery and he waslater placed in the department of anaes-thesiology and intensive medicine.

Čurko was shot five times, sufferingwounds to several internal organs, as wellas to his arms and face. After being admit-ted to hospital he underwent five hours ofsurgery but died of his injuries on May 12.

By Michaela Terenzaniwith press reports

BY MICHAELATERENZANISpectator staff

WikiLeaksreports US aided

Slovakia inbuying shares

Cabinet approves tax shake-up

THE MUCH-DEBATEDchanges to Slovakia’s systemof taxes and mandatorypayroll levies were approvedby the coalition cabinet at itssession on May 18.

The measures include aso-called super-gross salaryand reduction in payrolllevies for social insuranceand health insurance forsome employees. The tax-ex-empt base is also proposed tobe reduced from 19.2 timesthe minimum subsistencelevel to 18 times. In monet-ary terms, this means thetax-free base would be €200less in 2012.

The mandatory health-care levy is proposed at 9 per-cent, except for the disabledwho would pay half the rate.The proposed social insur-

ance levy is 19 percent foremployees, 13 percent forself-employed persons and 10percent for people workingvia work contracts, the TASRnewswire wrote.

A total of 99.5 percent ofemployees are expected to bebetter-off due to the changes.However, the changes willtake more from self-em-ployed people who earn morethan €4,823 per year; theirnumber is projected to be180,400.

The Civic ConservativeParty (OKS), whose four MPssit in the parliamentarycaucus of Most-Híd, is not intotal agreement with someprovisions of the proposaland. It says it is ready tochallenge the new rules inparliament.

Business calls for moreLabour Code changes

BUSINESSES do not hide theirenthusiastic opinions aboutthe Labour Code that was inplace in Slovakia in 2007 beforeit underwent some significantchanges under the govern-ment of Robert Fico. Althoughthe modifications proposed bythe government of IvetaRadičová are moving the La-bour Code closer to what busi-nesses call a ‘flexible law’, theBusiness Alliance of Slovakia(PAS) insists that the currentdraft, which was adopted bythe cabinet on April 28, doesnot go far enough.

The German-SlovakChamber of Commerce (DSI-HK) is also calling for addi-tional changes to the LabourCode even though the cham-ber said the draft revisions in-clude some modificationsthat its members appreciate.Slovakia’s trade unions areopposed to most of the pro-posed changes, arguing thatthey will cause a decline inthe economic and socialstatus of employees.

“Despite the fact that asmany as 140 provisions of thislaw are changing, the revisiondoes not have the potential tobring the level of flexibility tothe labour law which wasthere before 2007,” PAS said ina news release.

The alliance called onmembers of parliament tofocus on three key areas dur-ing the forthcoming parlia-mentary debate: costs re-

lated to the layoff of employ-ees; the amount of overtimework permitted; and the au-thority of representatives ofemployees in managerial de-cision-making.

Markus Halt, the spokes-man for DSIHK, said that therevision to the Labour Code willbring some improvement inthe hiring and firing process aswell as the introduction of flex-ible working time accounts.

He added, however, thatGerman investors still wantfurther changes, such asmore equal treatment of tradeunions and other employeerepresentation institutions,as his organisation believesthe current text in theamendment gives trade uni-ons more privileges.

“Especially in smaller andmedium-sized companies, theinterests of employees are of-ten represented by a workscouncil or other persons oftrust,” Halt told The SlovakSpectator. “The wording of thelaw does not grant these insti-tutions the same authoritywhen agreeing, for instance,on flexible working time.”

Halt also said his organ-isation would also like to see acap of 12 monthly salaries onwage compensation orderedby courts.

“The long proceedings atcourts often result in unjusti-fiably large severance pay,”Halt said.

The chamber also pro-poses that an employmentcontract should automatic-

ally terminate when an em-ployee reaches retirementage, saying this would im-prove the employment oppor-tunities for young people. Theorganisation is also suggest-ing that there be a reductionin the time period for advanceannouncement of vacationshutdowns to three monthsso that companies can reactmore flexibly to their currentbusiness situation.

PAS stated in its releasethat even though the pro-posed changes in the layoffnotice period will moder-ately reduce the costs of lay-offs of long-service employ-ees, employers will still beobliged to pay two-thirdsmore than they did in 2007,when employees were lim-ited to only three months’salary when laid off.

PAS wrote that the noticeperiod and the length of pay-ing severance in most OECDcountries is shorter than it isin Slovakia, adding that thechanges in the revisionwould move Slovakia towardsthe level of protection in oth-er OECD countries but itwould not match countriessuch as the United States,New Zealand, Great Britainand Australia, which arecharacterised by low levels ofemployee protection duringlayoffs but have lower levelsof unemployment.

“Slovakia has its own pos-itive experience with how aflexible labour code inspiresgrowth in employment andthe economy,” PAS wrote.

See CODE p g 9

BY BEATA BALOGOVÁSpectator staff

Labour Minister Jozef Mihál Photo: Sme

GDP: IMF predicts strong growthContinued from pg 1

Mária Valachyová of SlovenskáSporiteľňa bank added that the strongGerman growth was to a certain degreeassociated with a revival in the construc-tion sector which “at the end of the yearhad been stalled by unfavourableweather” and for that reason growth inthat sector was even faster at the begin-ning of this year.

“Partly it is a one-time impulse,”Valachyová said, while adding that otheraspects of German growth remain verystrong and that this is good news forSlovakia since Germany takes 20 percentof Slovakia’s exports.

Koršňák commented that revivinginvestment by domestic companies hasalso probably made a contribution to GDPgrowth.

“This [development] is suggested byloans that the banking sector provided tonon-financial companies, which at thebeginning of the year showed increasingtendencies; the year-on-year growth ac-celerated to almost 4.0 percent,” Koršňákwrote in a UniCredit release.

Eva Sadovská, an analyst withPoštová Banka, said that industrial pro-duction in Slovakia has managed to re-

turn to pre-crisis levels thanks to strongforeign demand.

“Nevertheless, we do not have anygreat illusions about domesticconsumption,” Sadovská added. “Unem-ployment in the first quarter remainedhigh and thus it did not allow Slovaks tobecome spendthrift.”

Koršňák commented that thegovernment’s austerity programme hascontributed to a reduction in consumerconfidence and has delayed a recovery indomestic consumption.

“We expect that government spend-ing has also recorded a drop and that thesavings measures within public admin-istration have an anti-growth effect onGDP,” Koršňák wrote.

According to Koršňák, GDP growthhas been accompanied by some growthin domestic employment, which re-gistered 1.6-percent year-on-yeargrowth in the first quarter and a 0.6-per-cent improvement from the last quarterof 2010.

Valachyová said that the preliminarylabour market numbers were surpris-ingly favourable, noting that the 0.6-per-cent quarterly growth was registereddespite layoffs in the public sector andfewer seasonal jobs. But she added that

data from district labour offices, on thecontrary, indicated more layoffs in com-parison to the previous quarter.

Fojtík expects that quarter-on-quarter GDP growth for the rest of theyear could be even stronger than in thefirst quarter, and that it could even besupported by higher consumption byhouseholds, which should be less con-cerned about unemployment.

The IMF predicted that Slovakia’seconomy will grow by 3.8 percent overthe full year and by 4.2 percent in 2012,while predicting average economicgrowth in the eurozone at 1.6 percent in2011 and 1.8 percent in 2012.

Koršňák’s bank has not modified itsearlier prediction of 3.1 percent GDPgrowth in 2011.

Valachyová’s bank is projecting GDPgrowth of 4 percent for 2011, driven bystrong foreign demand and further in-vestments in Slovakia.

Sadovská at Poštová Banka is predict-ing that GDP growth for the whole yearwill hit 3.7 percent.

“Overall it will be slower growth thanlast year when the economy grew by 4percent,” Sadovská said. “The reason be-hind this year’s growth will be continu-ing foreign demand.”

4 BUSINESS / NEWSMay 23 – 29, 2011

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REPRESENTATIVES of theSlovak government, regionaland local political officialsand representatives of theE.ON energy group officiallyopened a new combined-cyclepower station in Malženicenear Trnava on May 16.

The power plant wassymbolically fired up by Eco-nomy Minister Juraj Miškov,Environment Minister JózsefNagy, Jorgen Kildahl, amember of the managementboard of E.ON Energie AG,and Konrad Kreuzer, thechairman of the board ofE.ON Slovensko.

“The €400 million in-vestment by E.ON representsthe largest energy invest-ment in Slovakia realised bythe company in recentyears,” said Kildahl.

Minister Nagy noted inhis presentation that Slovakiais too far from securing sus-

tainable electricity genera-tion exclusively from renew-able energy resources andhighlighted the importance ofefficient facilities like theMalženice power plant thatgenerates power from a fossilfuel with as low as possibleburden on the environment.

The Malženice powerplant is regarded as one ofthe most advanced in Europefrom a technical point ofview in its category, boast-ing an efficiency of morethan 59 percent. This highfigure is achieved by simul-taneous use of gas and steamturbines.

The power plant has aninstalled capacity of 436 MWand can generate up to 3 bil-lion kWh of electricity peryear, sufficient to cover theaverage annual consump-tion of 600,000 to 900,000households.

Moody’s confirms Slovakia's A1 rating

MOODY’S Investors Serviceconfirmed Slovakia’s ratingof A1 with regard to its for-eign obligations and do-mestic currency on May 17and added that the outlookis stable.

The SITA newswire re-ported that Moody’s an-nouncement came in reac-tion to plans by the gov-ernment of Iveta Radičová

to take several measurestowards fiscal consolida-tion, such as reducing pub-lic sector wage costs by 10percent in 2011, limitingwaste in public procure-ment, freezing public in-vestments and increasingthe overall effectiveness ofpublic sector expenditure.

Compiled by Spectator staff

Radičovej kód

IT’S BEEN another great weekfor conspiracy fans. The policeclaim to have discovered ac-tual victims of the allegedcannibal, while some ques-tion not only his guilt but alsothe actions of the police whofailed to catch him alive. Thecensus is getting under way,propelling a wave of e-mailslikening the project to theactivities of the communist-era secret police and warningof possible abuses of personaldata. National hockey teamcoach Glen Hanlon wassacked, leading to a nationalhunt for his successor. Ac-cording to information fromWikiLeaks, the US secretlyadvised Robert Fico’s govern-ment on how to buy backshares in Transpetrol, andthus prevent deeper Russianinvolvement in the country.Then add the main foreignnews – the amorous adven-tures of IMF boss DominiqueStrauss-Kahn.

In this atmosphere itseems almost inevitable thatthe main event on the do-mestic political scene wouldbe shrouded in secrecy. Theselection of the general pro-secutor had the potential tobring down Iveta Radičová’sgovernment. In the end, itsurvived – but only, says Fico,thanks to the Radičová code.Fico’s theory is that coalitionMPs marked their ballots toenable mutual control of whovoted how. Now, in the pastthe Smer leader has come upwith his fair share of conspir-acy theories – the swine fluwas a product of pharmaceut-icals companies, the beatingof Hedviga Malinová was anattempt by Hungarians tobring down his government,

Americans went to Iraq be-cause of oil. In fact, leavingaside Hitler and Elvis livingon a common island, extrater-restrials wandering the globe,and freemasons running theworld economy, Fico hasprobably at some pointpresented as plausible everyimaginable conspiracy.

But this time is special.For once, Fico is almost cer-tainly right. Going into asecret vote without some sortof checks would have been in-sane. Unfortunately for him,he will never be able to prove

it. The ballots have been des-troyed. And coalition MPsseem determined not to dis-cuss their methods of votingin public. The prime ministerwas probably not involved indevising the mechanism, andmaybe truly rejected any rig-ging, as she has asserted inher public appearances.

But when dealing with thedark world of conspiracies,one can never forget the truthexpressed by former US sec-retary of defense DonaldRumsfeld: “We know thereare known knowns; there arethings we know we know. Wealso know there are knownunknowns; that is to say weknow there are some thingswe do not know. But there arealso unknown unknowns –the ones we don’t know wedon’t know.” And forRadičová, the secret votingmechanism is either a knownknown, or a known unknown.There is little chance of it be-ing an unknown unknown. Toput it simply – she most likelyknows the voting was notfully secret. One has to won-der how all this complies withthe code Radičová values themost. The code of ethics.

NDS: Official defends training firmContinued from pg 2

Sitár specified that thecancelled orders related tocoaching and education ofemployees of the NDS, mediaconsultancy, as well as con-sultancy for the forthcomingmerger of the NDS and theSlovak Road Administration.

Nevertheless, Sitár de-fended the procurement oftraining and coaching ser-vices from training firmFranklinCovey, arguing thatit had garnered positive ref-erences within the privatesector, the Sme daily repor-ted.

One of the tutors en-gaged to provide the coach-ing was Minister Figeľ’smain adviser, MariánKolník.

The questioned

training

On May 10, Figeľ con-firmed that he had receivedan anonymous letter inwhich disaffected NDS staffpointed to what theyclaimed were overpricedpurchases of training andconsulting services for thestate-run firm, the TASRnewswire reported. Figeľsaid he would seek an ex-planation from Sitár.

“Please find enclosedcopies of 17 orders from the[NDS] general director andhis colleagues. They repres-ent would-be work worth€309,203, which is an in-credible Sk9.315 million,”read the anonymouswhistle-blowing letters.

“You can peruse these orderson the NDS website. We’rehighly disillusioned aboutthis.”

The training sessionswere to have taken place at afive-star hotel in DunajskáStreda located in a historicalbuilding, which according toSme, belongs to backers ofanother ruling coalitionparty, Most-Híd.

Ján Kotula, a KDH nom-inee, has been named the in-terim head of the NDS. Healso serves as deputy chair-man of the board of directorsof the highway company.Kotula said that he was dis-satisfied with the operationof his predecessor.

“He had installed newmethods, which are unsuit-able for such a company,”

Kotula said, as quoted bySme.

Vážny, the previous min-ister, said the recall of Sitárdid not solve anything since,he claimed, it is Kolník,Figeľ’s adviser, who in real-ity manages the ministry.

Vážny said Figeľ wouldinstall a more obedient per-son in the post, SITA repor-ted. Vážny also refused todescribe the recall as a radic-al step, suggesting that Sitárhad planned to quit the NDSanyway.

The Transport Ministryrejected Vážny’s claims,stating that Figeľ acted inline with ethical standardsand commenting that theapproach of the previousmanagement, i.e. underVážny, was not comparable.

The Radičová CodePOLITICAL conspiracy theor-ies do have a certain irresist-ible charm and Smer bossRobert Fico is not the kind ofpolitician who can resistthem, especially when anelaborate plot can secure whathe desires as much as power:widespread publicity.

The ‘Radičová Code’ is nota cryptic message from asecret society revealing thegenesis of political power inSlovakia but rather Fico’stheory on how the ruling co-alition managed to keep fouror so members of parliamentfrom casting their ballots forthe re-selection of DobroslavTrnka as general prosecutor,as some had done in Decem-ber 2010. Prime Minister Iv-eta Radičová threatened toresign if Trnka were to win asubsequent vote, offeringmany reasons why he was nolonger suitable for that im-portant post.

So what is the RadičováCode? According to Fico, it iseighteen ballots markedthrough diagonally, re-portedly by MPs from theFreedom and Solidarity partywhile the MPs from Most-Hídinvalidated theirs with hori-zontal marks. The OrdinaryPeople MPs ticked both the‘abstain’ and ‘against’ boxeson the ballot while MPs fromthe Christian DemocraticMovement (KDH) actuallyvoted against Trnka and MPsfrom the Slovak Democraticand Christian Union (SDKÚ)abstained. Since Speaker ofParliament Richard Sulíkmade sure that all the ballotswere shredded, we cannotexpect a symbologist fromHarvard, or even the SlovakAcademy of Sciences, to fur-ther unravel the mysteries ofthe Radičová Code.

Though Pavol Hrušovský,the caucus chair of the Chris-tian Democratic Movement,responded that Fico’s theorycould “be made up only by ex-traterrestrial creatures,” Ficoremained confident that themathematical calculationsunderpinning his theorywere irrefutable.

This theatre of the absurdshows perfectly why an open,recorded vote is a much bet-ter method in Slovakia’s cur-rent political atmosphere,when MPs try to turn it into avirtue when they say theyvoted in a secret ballot in the

way they had previouslyagreed or that they had notbroken their solemn agree-ment while voting under thecloak of anonymity.

What has changed sincethe December vote when atleast four ruling coalitionMPs must have voted alongwith Fico’s Smer to returnTrnka to the prosecutor’s of-fice for another seven years?Perhaps those MPs whothought at that time thatthey could make some polit-ical bargain if Radičováresigned have now realisedthat they would have losteven more than Slovakia’sfirst woman prime minister.

The result of the May 17vote, however, has not giventhe members of parliamentmore integrity or turnedthem into better public ser-vants. What might change inthe future though is thatRadičová might becomemuch more careful about us-ing the threat of resignationas a tool to push throughwhat she thinks is right forher government. If used toofrequently this tool will not

only lose its sharpness butalso implant a feeling of in-stability even in people whoconsider the prime ministerthe main reason why theywould, for example, supportthe SDKÚ, the party that inmany ways still treats her assomething of an outsider,who just by some strange co-incidence happened to be-come the party’s most popu-lar (and trusted) face in theeyes of the Slovak public.

Nevertheless, this saga ofchoosing the country’s nextprosecutor is not yet any-where close to its end. Thenext chapter, which has juststarted, might bring somefurther surprises: the rulingcoalition might for somereason again fail to give un-animous support to their an-nounced, joint candidate –that is, of course, if the fourparties can still agree thatthey will have a joint candid-ate. Some coalition voices arealready questioning whetherit should continue to be JozefČentéš, who in a last-minutemove withdrew his candid-acy. The parties are nowfaced with the knotty ques-tion of what to do next.

It is also highly unlikelythat this was the last appear-ance by Dobroslav Trnka onthe political stage. If he fol-lows Fico’s advice he mightagain challenge the May 17vote in the ConstitutionalCourt, which might thenonce again order anothercurtain call in the secret-bal-lot melodrama.

How much easiereverything would be if theSlovak political elite were tofollow just a few simple rules:first, those who enter power-ful public positions should re-cognise that a point can comewhen it is one’s time to leavethe political stage; andsecond, the acts of MPsshould match their words,negating the need for a veil ofanonymity when making adecision in parliament thatwill fundamentally affect thecountry’s ethical standardsfor the next seven years.

5OPINION / NEWS

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “Only extraterrestrial creatures could make this up.”

The KDH’s Pavol Hrušovský reacts to allegations by Smer leader Robert Fico thatthe coalition had used a code to monitor the secret vote on the general prosecutor.

SLOVAK WORDOF THE WEEK EDITORIAL

BY BEATA BALOGOVÁSpectator staff

BY LUKÁŠ FILASpecial to the Spectator

May 23 – 29, 2011

The Slovak Spectator is an independent newspaper published every Monday by The Rock, s.r.o.SSubscriptions: Inquiries should be made to The Slovak Spectator’s business office at (+421-2) 59 233 300. Printing: Petit Press a.s. Distribution: Interpress Slovakia s.r.o., Mediaprint-kapa s.r.o., Slovenská po‰ta a.s. Mail Distribution: ABOPRESS. EV 544/08. © 2010 The Rock, s.r.o. All rights reserved. Any reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited by law. The authors of articles published in this issue, represented by the publisher, reserve the right to give their approval for reproducing and public transmission of articles marked ©The Slovak Spectator, as well as for the public circulation of reproductions of these articles,in compliance with the 33rd article and 1st paragraph of the Copyright Law. Media monitoring is provided by Newton, IT, SMA and Slovakia Online with the approval of the publisher. Advertising material contained herein is the responsibility of the advertiser and is not a written or implied sponsorship, endorsement or investigation of suchcommercial enterprises or ventures by The Slovak Spectator or The Rock s.r.o. ISSN 1335-9843.Address: The Rock, s.r.o., Lazaretská 12, 811 08 Bratislava. IâO: 313 86 237.

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MPs voting on the general prosecutor. Photo: SITA

Slovaks eye work inAustria and Germany

THE OPENING of the Austri-an and German labour mar-kets on May 1 was long anti-cipated but it appears thatlifting this last barrier to (al-most) fully free movement oflabour within the EuropeanUnion will not have any sig-nificant impact on the Slovaklabour market. Those Slovakswho wanted to work in eitherof these two countries hadprobably already found apath to do so, while insuffi-cient language skills arelikely to continue to act as abarrier to mass migration bySlovak workers.

Some Austrian and Ger-man employers have said theywould like to fill their vacan-cies by hiring qualified Slovakworkers and some Slovakshave also been eyeing this op-portunity with high expecta-tions but it seems that differ-ences in supply and demandmay limit both expectations.

“Austria and Germany[already] had their labourmarkets open for all wantedprofessions,” Michal Páleníkof the Employment Institute,an employment think tank,told The Slovak Spectator.“So, all of those for whomthere was demand arealready working there. Sim-plification of administrativeprocedures and the openingof other positions will cer-tainly help others to get em-ployed in Germany or Aus-tria, but I do not expect thatthere will be a lot of thoseemployees. I estimate themat some thousands.”

Personnel and recruit-ment agencies confirmed theinterest of Austrian and Ger-

man companies in findingqualified labour in Slovakia aswell as the interest of Slovaksin finding jobs in these twocountries. The Slovak arm ofManpower said the interest ofGerman and Austrian com-panies in Slovak workers hasan upward trajectory.

The Slovak arm of Trenk-walder currently has about450 job offers from companiesin Austria and Germany andabout 500 Slovaks seekingjobs in those countries.

“We expect that we will beable to place, via our sistercompanies, about 1,000 Slovakworkers annually in thesemarkets,” Luboš Sirota, thehead of Trenkwalder in Slov-akia told The Slovak Spectator.

According to Sirota, thepresence of Austrian andGerman companies operatingin Slovakia has significantlycontributed to buildingawareness and knowledgeabout the qualities of the Slov-ak labour force, which is nolonger viewed as somethingunknown or unclear.

“And the fact that tens ofthousands of Slovaks havealready been working in Aus-tria and Germany has alsobuilt awareness about theSlovak labour force,” saidSirota. “For example, the res-ults of a survey conducted byTrenkwalder Personaldiensteof Austria among 395 Austriancompanies in February 2011indicated that over 40 percentof the surveyed companiesalready employ workers fromeastern EU member countries.Almost one half of the re-spondents did not rule outadmitting workers from thesecountries in 2011 and of these,almost 50 percent were inter-ested specifically in Slovaks.”

According to the experi-ence of Trenkwalder, Austrianand German companies areespecially interested in quali-fied workers with a technicalfocus: IT experts, certainkinds of industrial workersand also health-care staff.

See JOBS pg 8

BY JANA LIPTÁKOVÁSpectator staff

Companies want workers with expert skills. Photo: ČTK

Slovakia to issue EU Blue Cards

SLOVAKIA, like other European coun-tries, faces an aging society and is start-ing to look beyond its borders to fill ingaps in its labour force. To create a moreunified structure for work migration theEuropean Union has developed a systemof Blue Cards to allow skilled workers tomore easily obtain entry to EU countries.Slovakia is now taking action to transposethe EU’s legislation into its national laws.The Slovak parliament will discuss a draftrevision to the country’s law on illegalwork as well as an amendment to the lawon foreigners staying in Slovakia at itscurrent session that opened on May 17.

“The Blue Card will enable foreignersfrom third countries [those outside theEU] to live and work in Slovakia,” NatáliaHattalová from the press department of

the Interior Ministry wrote in a news re-lease. The card will be valid for threeyears and can be renewed for anotherthree years. An applicant for a Blue Cardmust have already been offered a so-called highly-qualified job, must possessthe required qualifications, and musthave a work contract or a written coven-ant from a specific employer.

If adopted by parliament, Slovakiawill start issuing the Blue Card as of July1, 2011. The administrative fee for a BlueCard is slated to be €165.50, with a renew-al fee of €99.50. To be eligible for a BlueCard a migrant’s agreed upon salary mustbe at least 1.5 times the average salary inSlovakia. The national average monthlysalary last year was €769 so the monthlysalary for a Blue Card migrant should beabout €1,150 or higher.

Slovakia’s aging population

“With an aging population and a verylow fertility rate, Slovakia has a seriousdemographic problem,” Martin Kahanec,scientific director of the CentralEuropean Labour Studies Institute(CELSI) in Bratislava, told The SlovakSpectator. “The significant shrinkage of

its working-age population projected bydemographers for the coming decadesposes severe risks for its economy, labourmarket and public finances.”

Kahanec believes that immigrationcan significantly alleviate these prob-lems, not only directly through the in-flow of young and highly-motivated eco-nomic migrants but also by creation ofnew jobs for Slovak citizens.

“In particular, high-skilled immig-rants can fill in bottlenecks in the labourmarket and thereby buttress the eco-nomy and increase demand for the do-mestic labour force,” said Kahanec.

Kahanec added that from the labourmarket perspective the primary objectiveof Slovakia’s migration policy should beto facilitate immigration, integration,and naturalisation of skilled migrants,noting that this could include immigra-tion of well-educated workers but alsostudents who come first to study but whocould then stay to work.

Some labour market experts believethat issuing the EU Blue Card will help todraw more experts to Slovakia – but oth-ers are not so sanguine.

See CARD pg 8

BY JANA LIPTÁKOVÁSpectator staff

6

Migration of skilledworkers seen as a curefor an aging population

Poor knowledgeof German

could hindertheir success

May 23 – 29, 2011

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Slovak labour market may facea lack of qualified employees

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HR experts see promise

THE SLOVAK economy isshowing clear signals of recov-ery and this has been reflectedin the labour market and inmore business for companiesthat are active in executivesearch, personnel audits, con-sultancy, temporary employ-ment and other fields of hu-man resources. But represent-atives of firms in this businesssay the nature of their workhas changed from before orduring the economic crisis.

The Slovak Spectatorspoke with seven executivesof HR firms: Igor Šulík, man-aging partner of Amrop Slov-akia consultancy company;Ján Menkyna, founding part-ner of Menkyna & PartnersManagement Consulting;Mariana Turanová, managingpartner of Target ExecutiveSearch in Slovakia; DanaBlechová, country manager ofIventa Slovakia ManagementConsulting; Ľuboš Sirota,chairman of the board of dir-ectors and CEO of Trenk-walder in Slovakia; ErikHudák, sales manager of theSlovak arm of Manpower; andPeter Paška from ProactPeople Slovensko.

The Slovak Spectator (TSS):How do you perceive devel-opments in the current la-bour market and particu-larly in the executivesearch segment? How hasthe situation changed incomparison with the periodbefore the economic crisis?What do you expect next inthe recovery of Slovakia’seconomy?

Igor Šulík: Consultancycompanies are reporting amore significant demand fortheir services now than duringthe crisis. Companies havegradually restarted their in-vestments while simultan-eously beginning to look forenhancement of their teams,even though it is still not pos-sible to talk about the dynamicmovements in the labourmarket that we witnessed be-fore mid 2009.

Simultaneously, it is ne-cessary to point out that whatis expected from job applic-ants has changed. The abilityto act in a changing environ-ment, to face unexpectedevents, to anticipate and elim-inate potential risks – theseare some of the evaluation cri-teria which employers are us-ing to analyse potential can-didates for managerial andleadershippositions.

In my opinion the humanresources and recruiting in-dustry faces two fundamentalchallenges. The first is theswift arrival of social mediaand social networks, where in-formation about job applic-ants is relatively easily avail-able. Thus, the ability to workwith these networks in a cor-

rect and ethical way as well asthe ability to find also thosepeople who protect their pri-vacy and avoid such mediawill be of key importance inthe success of consultancycompanies in finding leaders.The second trend, which I be-lieve will determine the near-term development of person-nel consultancy, will be theincreasing interest [of clients]in services with a higher ad-ded value.

Ján Menkyna: The situ-ation in executive search is dif-ferent from business sector tobusiness sector. For example,the manufacturing sector washit hardest by the crisis buthere we have registered aspontaneous restart. On theother hand, there are sectorswhich were less affected by thecrisis and changes are happen-ing only now. Here I wouldput, for example, the pharma-ceutical industry, which wasactually not hit by the crisis inany significant way but is nowreflecting some systemicchanges which the health-care sector is facing, as well asdevelopment and research.Consequently, we perceive abigger crisis in the pharma-ceutical industry now thanduring the global crisis.

Mariana Turanová: De-velopments are favourable forfirms active in executivesearch. Companies are againsearching for managers andexperts. They are creating newpositions which they need tofill with people with specificexperience and managerialpotential. They are unable tofind such people via classical,passive recruitment, such asads and database search andthat is why they need our ser-vices. Reports about theplanned economic growth aswell as concrete investments,for example those announcedby Volkswagen and Honey-well, are creating a positiveatmosphere.

Dana Blechová: Move-ment is already visible in thelabour market, with previ-ously vacant positions now be-ing filled and some companiestaking on new staff. The lattertrend we see especially inmanufacturing companies aswell as in so-called shared ser-vice centres. Firms that haveorders and sound results aremore courageous when mak-ing decisions, as well as inmaking changes.

Executive search is nowused especially when chan-ging top managers but also formanagers in various divisions.Thus far, companies had beenfilling managerial positionsinternally but this was not al-ways the best solution. Com-panies are gradually endingpolicies of saving and optim-ising. They really need the ap-propriate people and must findreplacements at certain posi-tions, something they did notdo even before the crisis. Theyhave all learned that econom-ic growth is not a permanentphenomenon and that man-agers who have occupiedtheir posts for many yearswithout any tangible resultsmust be evaluated more real-istically and in some casesmust even be replaced. Afterthe crisis companies are look-ing for optimal solutions.This is why companies arestrengthening their localmanagement and replacingexpats. We expect that a lot ofcompanies will be looking forthe most appropriate peopleand that will increase de-mand for the services of exec-utive search companies.

TSS: How would you assessthe current interest of com-panies in Slovakia in person-nel leasing? How has thesituation changed in com-parison with the crisis peri-od?

Ľuboš Sirota: The situ-ation has radically changedwhen compared with the crisisperiod. This is because em-ployers in Slovakia, contrary towestern EU countries, werequickly getting rid of agencyworkers, because cutting la-bour in this way was cheapestfor them. The low flexibility inlabour legislation in Slovakiawas also responsible for this.However, since mid 2009 thistrend has turned around andSlovak companies have begunto take back terminated agencyworkers. The reason is thatduring the crisis they realisedthat this form of employmentenabled then to react flexiblyto their production situationand the development of orders.As a consequence, the numberof agency workers has morethan tripled. Currently, withinTrenkwalder, the number ofleased people working full-time exceeds 3,000.

Peter Paška: During thecurrent time we are register-

ing an increased interest innew workers on the part of ourpartner companies. Comparedwith the same period of 2010our performance has in-creased by 38 percent. The in-crease oscillates from sometens up to some hundreds ofnewly-filled positions, de-pending on the individualcompanies. But this reflectsespecially the current start-upof manufacturing companies,which are returning to fullproduction after a period of re-duced orders.

With regards to anticip-ated developments, we see anincreasing interest in quali-fied workers and experts. Thismeans that companies arewelcoming the possibility toget workers who are ‘ready’; onthe other hand, that does notplay in favour of recent gradu-ates who have not yet had thechance to obtain the necessarypractical experience.

Erik Hudák: The interestof companies is growing.Moreover, prior to the summerholidays companies are alsointerested in finding short-term replacements. Comparedwith the crisis period, thenumber of leased people is in-creasing.

To read all the comments madeby these and other HR experts,please go to www.spectator.sk.

BY JANA LIPTÁKOVÁSpectator staff

Firms are beginning to hire again, say experts. Photo: TASR

7BUSINESS FOCUS

Lack of qualified people predicted

IN SPITE of the still-highunemployment rate, theSlovak labour market mayface a lack of qualified la-bour within a short time,the Trenkwalder personnelagency warned in late April.It based its concerns on thelong average period – cur-rently exceeding one year –which job seekers spend re-gistered with job offices,the SITA newswire wrote.

Based on data from theLabour, Social Affairs andFamily Office (ÚPSVAR), theaverage period of registra-tion was 13.81 months inMarch. Compared with thesame period of 2010 thisrepresents an increase ofalmost one month.

The group of peoplewho are gradually losingworking habits is expand-ing, according to Trenk-walder. There is therefore adanger that whenSlovakia’s economy startsgrowing in earnest firmswill have problems findingsuitable employees in spiteof the high number of job-less people.

“The bad structure ofunemployment in Slovakiawill gradually increase the

price of those who alreadyhave a job,” said LubošSirota, from the Slovak armof Trenkwalder.

ÚPSVAR data confirmthe structure of people whoare currently without a job.

“The growing economy,after taking up current re-serves, will encounter thesame problems it faced inthe recent past – a lack ofappropriate labour,”warned Trenkwalder.Moreover, the local educa-tion system is unable to sat-isfy increased demand forqualified workers by sup-plying enough qualitygraduates.

Simultaneously, it isunrealistic to expect thesituation to change in thecoming months.

“The inflow of newgraduates will worsen thesituation of those whograduated from schools lastyear and have not yet founda job,” Sirota said, addingthat companies will preferfresh graduates to thosewho have failed to succeedin the labour market so far.

Compiled by Spectator staff

from press reports

FOCUS short

May 23 – 29, 2011

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Young Europeans seek work abroad

ACCORDING to the latestEurobarometer survey, 53percent of young people inEurope are willing or keen towork in another Europeancountry, but lack of moneydiscourages many of themfrom taking a first step to-wards doing so by spendingpart of their educationabroad. The survey, conduc-ted in the context of theEuropean Commission’s

‘Youth on the Move’ strategy,was published on the eve ofthe 2011 European YouthWeek between May 15 and 21.

The survey highlighted ahuge gap between the wide-spread desire of young peopleto work abroad and actualworkforce mobility: less than3 percent of Europe’s workingpopulation currently livesoutside their home country.

Compiled by Spectator staff

Slovakia’s youth facing joblessness

THE NUMBER of young peoplewithout jobs in Slovakia re-mains high. At the end ofMarch, people aged between20 and 29 made up the biggestgroup of jobseekers – 111,100,i.e. almost 30 percent of alljobseekers, who numberedmore than 390,000 people, theSITA newswire reported, cit-ing data from the Labour, So-cial Affairs and Family Office(ÚPSVAR). The second mostnumerous group of jobseekerswere people aged 30 to 39

(92,200), followed by the 40 to49-year-old group (84,600).

Prešov and Košice Regionstopped the chart for thehighest numbers of unem-ployed young people, with24,400 and almost 21,000 inthe 20 to 29-year-old category,respectively. On the otherhand, Bratislava and TrnavaRegions reported the lowestyouth unemployment, withalmost 5,100 and almost 8,400young people searching forjobs, respectively.

45 applicants for every job

JOB offices offered fewer than9,000 vacancies in March,while the number of jobseekers marked a record levelof over 390,000. There weretherefore around 45 unem-ployed people for each avail-able job in Slovakia, the TASRnewswire reported.

At the end of March va-cancies numbered 8,760, ac-cording to the Labour, SocialAffairs and Family Office

(ÚPSVAR). Of Slovakia’s eightregions, Trnava reported themost vacancies – almost1,900. The fewest vacancieswere reported by those re-gions with the highest un-employment rates: BanskáBystrica (744 vacancies) andKošice (581 vacancies).

During March, the num-ber of new vacancies was 1,713,while 4,762 vacancies werefilled during the same month.

JOBS: Mismatch in skills is a problemContinued from pg 6

Sirota believes that Slovakscan find jobs in those countriesalso in the administration, con-struction or trade sectors.

Erik Hudák, sales managerof the Slovak arm of Manpower,confirmed a growing interestby companies in Germany andAustria of employing Slovakworkers, noting that thebiggest interest is in qualifiedworkers, IT specialists, weldersand skilled craftsmen as well asauxiliary workers in the con-struction industry and employ-ees in the tourism sector.

When comparing the re-quirements that German andAustrian companies expectfrom Slovak workers againstpotential employees from othercountries, both Sirota andHudák emphasised that know-ing German well is generally anecessity but that the IT sector,dominated by English, mightbe an exception.

“In general, foreign com-panies are, contrary to Slovakcompanies, less willing to lowertheir requirements on employ-ees and Austrian and Germancompanies are not anexception,” said Sirota.“Equally, foreign companies laymore stress on the psychologic-al profile of an employee, espe-cially in the service sector.”

Interest and demand

are not aligned

The experiences of thesepersonnel companies thus farshow a mismatch betweendemand in the German andAustrian labour markets andthe supply available fromother countries.

“Applicants who declare aninterest in a job abroad havemostly completed their second-ary education with the school-

leaving exam,” LuciaBurianová, spokesperson forProfesia, told The Slovak Spec-tator. “The second most numer-ous group of applicants lookingfor a job abroad are those withcompleted secondary educationbut without the school-leavingexam. On the other hand, themost desired group of workersare those with completed uni-versity education, and theymake up less than one tenth ofthe job applicants.”

Trenkwalder currently re-gisters about 500 job applicantsfor positions in Germany andAustria and a survey it conduc-ted among job applicants con-firmed a general interest infinding a job abroad.

“As many as 50 percent ofthe respondents would like toapply for a job in Germany,Austria or Switzerland,” saidSirota, adding that the highestinterest is in Austria. “With re-gards to Austria and Germany,we register the highest interestin unqualified work positionsin the sectors of manufactur-ing and service, in which100-percent knowledge of thelanguage is not required.”

Poor knowledge of theGerman language is a sorespot. A survey conducted byTrenkwalder among 1,504 re-spondents in Slovakia showedthat of 625 respondents whoanswered the question abouttheir language level for thecountry in which they want towork, just over half said thatthey were only able to makethemselves understood andonly 19 percent said they hadmastered the language.

“This clearly indicates thatthe language barrier is slowingdown Slovaks in searching forjobs abroad,” Sirota stated.

Trenkwalder in Slovakiaregistered the highest interestin jobs in Germany and Aus-

tria from Slovak applicants forthe positions of bricklayer andbricklayer helper, waiter,shop assistant, painter-decor-ator, assistant cook as well asin services in hotels. ButTrenkwalder reported that thedemand for labour from thesecountries focuses more onspecific qualified positions inmanufacturing and servicesectors which require fluentlanguage skills.

Sirota stated that thereare some huge qualitative dif-ferences between demandand supply.

“The problem is that eventhough we have enough can-didates for a given position,the applicants do not speakthe language at the requiredlevel,” Sirota said, adding thatemployers are interested inhighly-qualified manufactur-ing positions using CNC[computer numerical control]machines, welders, electri-cians and other skilled jobs.“These positions are, in termsof suitable candidates, quitedifficult to fill. On the otherhand, if candidates spoke thelanguage, certainly German orAustrian firms could motivatethem better financially [thanSlovak employers].”

Sirota said he expects thatin the future employers fromthese countries will ‘overpay’for suitable, experienced em-ployees and that will pushemployers in Slovakia to in-crease wages for these posi-tions here and that some do-mestic employers might haveto look for certain kinds of la-bour from abroad.

Low qualifications

not needed

Slovakia suffers from high-er levels of unemploymentamong people with lower qual-

ifications and it does not ap-pear that the opening of theAustrian and German labourmarkets will be a miraculouscure for this problem.

“People with higher aswell as lower qualificationshave a chance [to get a job],but it is unrealistic to expectthat too many Slovaks will behired in those countries,”said Páleník of the Employ-ment Institute.

Hudák of Manpower agreedthat the inability of manySlovaks with low qualificationsto speak German decreases thelikelihood that they can get ajob in Germany or Austria.

“Unless they speak thelanguage at a level adequate fora given work position, theymust reckon that an Austrianor German employer wouldonly be satisfied with leadingsuch people via team leaderswho are Slovaks who speakGerman; for example, oneteam leader leading 10 workerswho do not speak German,”Hudák said.

Sirota thinks that aperson’s chance of landing a jobin Germany or Austria dependson the exact position that aworker seeks but that languageskills and good qualificationsare almost always necessary.

“Most employers fromthese countries primarily needqualified labour with sufficientlanguage skills,” Sirota said. “Asurvey by Trenkwalder among395 Austrian companiesshowed that 42.9 percent ofthose interested in labour fromnewer EU member countrieshad a need for experts and 31.1percent for language skills.Only 14.3 percent of thesecompanies put savings oncosts as the reason for employ-ing labour from abroad. Thus,lower qualifications are astrong constraint.”

CARD: Doubts over who will seek oneContinued from pg 6

“The target group should be highly-educated experts. These will also pre-sumably have high salaries,” MichalPáleník of the Employment Institute, anemployment think tank, told The SlovakSpectator, adding that establishing thecard’s technical conditions is importantbecause the card should be not abused tofill standard work positions. “It is also ne-cessary to have in mind the lives of familymembers of Blue Card holders. Theyshould also have the possibility to get ajob here so the family can fully integrateinto society.”

Kahanec perceives the Blue Card as acommendable initiative on the part of theEU but views its potential success inSlovakia as questionable.

“The Blue Card has been watereddown under pressure from EU memberstates and now it offers only fairly limitedoptions for potential immigrants,” saidKahanec. “For example, it does notprovide for a transparent and straight-forward transition to citizenship. Also, itstipulates too high a threshold for theminimum eligible earnings.”

To attract the required workers whocould fill bottlenecks in the Slovak la-bour market, Kahanec thinks the coun-try should adopt its own targeted migra-

tion policy, suggesting that Slovakiashould issue its own ‘White-Blue-Red’Card that would attract skilled immig-rants to work, live and possibly natural-ise in this country.

“Given the weak position of Slovakiain the global competition for skilledworkers, the ‘White-Blue-Red’ Cardshould stipulate relatively mildconditions,” said Kahanec. “For ex-ample, a university degree and an ad-equate job in Slovakia should suffice. Inthis way, the market would also solvethe question of which jobs should befilled by immigrants.”

Since the Blue Card is targeted onlyat highly-skilled immigrants, Kahanecunderstands the reasons for the re-quirement that a Blue Card applicantmust earn more than 1.5 times the aver-age salary in Slovakia, but thinks it is toolimiting.

“In particular, it can be expected to se-lect precisely those immigrants that havea high earning potential and are in all like-lihood quite skilled,” said Kahanec.“However, I find this threshold too re-strictive for many occupations. Imagine ayoung teacher who would like to come toSlovakia to teach mathematics at a highschool. Such a person in my view clearlyqualifies for the special regime offered bythe Blue Card. But one can hardly expect

that teacher to earn more than 1.5 timesthe average salary in Slovakia. “

Kahanec added that this logic can beapplied to many other positions such asphysicians or younger workers in general.

“It is precisely such young and skilledpeople that can help alleviate Slovakia’sdemographic and labour marketchallenges,” Kahanec stressed, and thatis why he has proposed the ‘White-Blue-Red’ Card.

Few migrants in Slovakia

The share of migrants and their fam-ilies in Slovakia’s population of 5.4 mil-lion is less than 1 percent according tothe results of a survey focusing on workmigration conducted by the Institute ofPublic Affairs among a sample of 350 re-spondents in 2010 and 2011. Migrantswith a university degree dominatedamong those surveyed, accounting for47 percent.

Based on statistics released by the La-bour, Social Affairs and Family Office(ÚPSVAR) in January, there were almost18,200 foreigners working in Slovakia atthe end of 2010. This was an increase of3,000 compared to the end of 2009, theSITA newswire reported. Romanians arethe largest group, numbering over 2,900,up 538 compared with 2009.

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NBÚ: Sulík dismisses 'pseudo-reasons'Continued from pg 1

But on May 11 the SDKÚparliamentary caucus pouredcold water on Paluda’schances by voting to opposehis candidacy.

Reasons for the ‘no’

SDKÚ MPs initially failedto explain their objections toPaluda, causing more badblood among the parties dur-ing the tense mid-May run-upto the secret vote on the gen-eral prosecutor in whichRadičová’s future as primeminister was at stake.

After their meeting,SDKÚ caucus leader JozefMikuš refused to specify anyreasons for his MPs’ decision,stating only that it would‘not be appropriate’ to makepublic statements on thematter in order not to harmPaluda’s name.

“It is as if someone poureda bucket of dirt on you and youcannot say anything,” Paludareacted in an interview withthe Sme daily.

Political analyst GrigorijMesežnikov of the Institutefor Public Affairs (IVO) saidthe SDKÚ’s stance was not le-gitimate. Such decisionsshould be explained, he said.

“They shouldn’t now besurprised if their candidatesin the future don’t win thesupport of the remainingthree coalition partners,” henoted, adding that at least aninternal explanation wouldbe sufficient.

On May 19 the SDKÚ fi-nally decided to explain itsdecision. It gave four mainreasons for opposing Paluda:his statement that he wouldlook into revoking previ-ously issued security clear-ances; his decision to sue theJudicial Council for lostearnings over then-justiceminister Štefan Harabin’sdecision to recall him fromEurojust; SaS’s method ofannouncing Paluda’s can-didacy, i.e. going direct tothe media rather than brief-ing its coalition partners inadvance; and what the SDKÚsaid was Paluda’s lack ofmanagerial experience.

The final reason hadalready been cited in mediareports. However, Paludahimself responded to thatclaim in a brief interviewwith the Sme daily by asking:“What kind of managerialskills had Mr [František]Blanárik?”

Blanárik, the outgoingNBÚ boss, was an allegedformer agent for the commun-ist-era military intelligenceagency and stepped downfrom his NBÚ post under in-tense media pressure after re-ports about his past were re-published earlier this year.

SaS accepts only one reason

Responding to the SDKÚlist, SaS leader Richard Sulíksaid that he could accept onlythe first of its reasons, andcalled the remaining three"pseudo-reasons". But he con-firmed that SaS would nolonger insist on Paluda’s can-didacy, as it had previouslysaid it would.

Echoing Mesežnikov’scomments, Sulík said SaSwould not rule out using itsright to veto other coalitionparties’ candidates in future.

SDKÚ divisions

Unlike the majority of theSDKÚ caucus, Radičová saysshe still considers Paluda anacceptable candidate.

“I consider him a prin-ciple-driven person and [therejection] does not change myattitude at all,” SITA reported

her as saying after her partyhad rejected his nomination.The only other member of theSDKÚ who is known to havesupported Paluda during thecaucus session is anotherformer judge, now an SDKÚMP, Jana Dubovcová.

The opposing opinionswithin the party have onceagain provoked debate aboutthe cohesion of the SDKÚ andthe prime minister’s positionwithin her own party. EvenDefence Minister ĽubomírGalko, an SaS nominee, hintedat problems within the SDKÚ

in his blog entry from May 15entitled ‘The time has comefor a change or we will not giveup Paluda’.

“The prime minister beingslapped in a live broadcast bypeople of her own party issomething I cannot get usedto,” he wrote.

Galko said he is con-vinced that the current situ-ation is harming the wholecoalition and called on hiscoalition colleagues to puttheir cards on the table.

“If someone wants tobreak this government andrule with [opposition party]Smer” then they have to de-clare it openly and notthrough intrigues andgames, he said.

Mesežnikov agreed thatthe present situation, if it con-tinues, might increase tensionamong the coalition partnersand break the trust betweenthem. He noted that the SDKÚoften takes a strange stance onpersonnel issues.

“If there are disqualifyingfactors [for the candidate], co-alition partners of course havethe right to veto thenomination,” he said. “But inPaluda’s case there was noth-ing like that.”

CODE: Days offContinued from pg 4

An employee’s probation-ary period would remain un-changed at three months un-der the proposed revision, ex-cept that a period of up to sixmonths would be allowed formanagerial staff. The draftamendment would also intro-duce so-called shared posts,making it possible for an em-ployer to divide work usuallydesignated as only one job pos-ition between two employees.

The proposal would alsogive an employer the optionof negotiating a combinationof severance pay and layoffnotice period with an em-ployee and would eliminatethe employer’s legal obliga-tion to provide laid off em-ployees with both notice andseverance pay.

The draft revision wouldautomatically entitle em-ployees who are aged 33 andolder to 25 days of annualholiday leave.

Employees who haveworked for a company for atleast one year but less thanfive years would continue tohave the existing layoff no-tice period of at least twomonths.

Employees who haveworked for a company for atleast five years but less than10 years would be entitled toat least a three-month noticeperiod; those with 10 but lessthan 20 years of service wouldreceive at least a four-monthnotice period; and those with20 or more years of employ-ment would have at least afive-month notice period, theSITA newswire reported.

9NEWS May 23 – 29, 2011

OPEN: Austriafears dumping

Continued from pg 3

But he noted that theAustrian labour market hasnever actually been closed toworkers from Slovakia andother ‘new’ EU memberstates during the transitionperiod, as there were legalways to be admitted to workin Austria. He said that90,000 people from the eightcountries were legally em-ployed in Austria in 2010,whereas the number ofworkers from the ‘old’ EUcountries (the pre-2004 EU15)amounted to about 101,000.

Further west, the Ger-man government reports ayearly inflow of 100,000 to140,000 immigrants from theeight countries, despite thetransition period; thesenumbers are not expected tochange significantly afterthe market opens up, theSITA newswire reported. Themajority of immigrants toGermany come from Poland.

Estimates of the scale offuture migration vary wildlyin Germany, the FinancialTimes reported. While theEuropean Commission ex-pects no more than 100,000extra people to come toGermany each year, theGerman government putsthe figure at 140,000. But theInstitute for the GermanEconomy in Cologne be-lieves there could be an ini-tial surge of up to 800,000more in the first two years.

Markus Halt, thespokesperson of the Slovak-German Chamber of Com-merce, said that in Germanythere is a lack of skilled la-bour in the technical andmedical professions.

“Among several meas-ures the country wants tofill the gap also by recruitinglabour from abroad, in par-ticular from central andeastern Europe,” Halt toldThe Slovak Spectator. Ac-cording to him, the mostfrequently sought profes-sionals from Slovakia and itsneighbours in Germany aredoctors and craftsmen.

Austria’s tactic

Prior to opening its la-bour market – a move itcould not avoid after theseven-year-long maximumtransition period hadelapsed – the Austrian gov-ernment, however, tookmeasures to prevent what itcalled social and wagedumping, in the form of theAnti-Wage and Social Dump-ing Act (AVRAG).

According to this law, allforeign employees are en-titled to the minimum wageor the wage set by the collect-ive treaty, which in practicemeans that companies fromSlovakia who hope to enterthe Austrian market andseek new orders will have topay their employees the Aus-trian minimum wage, which

often exceeds the normalwages of Slovak workers.Foreign companies active inthe Austrian labour marketare also obliged to observeAustrian national holidaysand Austrian rules for vaca-tions for workers.

Social and wage dumpingcould also occur in Austriancompanies employing work-ers from new member stateswho seek to take advantageof the fact that foreignersmight not be well informedabout their rights.

Companies who violatethe rules can face fines of upto €50,000, or double that ifthe offence is repeated.

After the Austrian gov-ernment passed AVRAG, thechairman of the Slovak par-liamentary committee forEuropean affairs, IvanŠtefanec, wrote an open let-ter to the Austrian Ambas-sador to Slovakia to requesthis assistance in breakingdown the barriers that he be-lieves the bill imposes forSlovak companies.

Štefanec said that the lawintroduces inappropriateadministrative barriers forforeign, including Slovak,employers, and that it inter-feres in free contractual rela-tionships, including wage-related ones, between anemployee and his or her em-ployer in Slovakia in the casethat the employee is sent toAustria on business.

“The only effect of thismeasure is the negative sig-nal that in the unitedEurope – even now, afterseven years of ‘testing’membership has elapsed –all [members] are still notequal,” Štefanec wrote.

Štefanec has also been intouch with the EuropeanCommission over the mat-ter and says that the find-ings of the EC have provedseveral times in the pastthat most barriers in thisarea are ineffective.

Ambassador Wuketichsaid that Austria’s objective isto secure its traditionally highsocial and labour standardsfor both Austrian and foreignworkers. He maintained thatit is legitimate under EU regu-lations and said the act is onlyone step towards supportingthese goals. There have alsobeen workshops and jointprojects between the AustrianPublic Employment Serviceand the Slovak Labour, SocialAffairs and Family Office toprovide information aboutthe functioning of the Austri-an labour market, he said.

“With a view to good re-lationships with our neigh-bours we have launched ex-pert talks on labour marketquestions also with the Slov-ak side that are to continue,”Ambassador Wuketich said,adding that on May 9 theAustrian Federal Minister ofLabour and Social Affairs methis Slovak counterpart todiscuss the matter.

Peter Paluda Photo: Sme - Tomáš Benedikovič

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Duelling counts of Pezinok

THE TOWNS of Pezinok andSvätý Jur in the SmallCarpathians belonged forthree centuries to thefamilies of the Counts ofSvätý Jur and Pezinok.

However, at the endof the 14th century,Moravian margraves Jošt andProkop seized control of SvätýJur and Pezinok – and thecounts sought to get theirproperties returned.

A duel almost transpiredbetween Juraj II from thePezinok line and Peter II fromthe Svätý Jur line of the

counts. And what exactlyhappened?

In 1399, Peter gained the

Pezinok Castle back from theMoravian margraves for Jurajfor 4,000 golden ducats. Hedid not pay the money back,however, and denied that hehad given any promise to doso. Moreover, he threw downthe gauntlet and challengedPeter to a duel because his

reputation had been harmed.Peter refused, however, andthe whole dispute was appar-

ently resolved through anoath.

In this postcard fromthe 1920s, the oldestPezinok church – dedic-

ated to the Virgin Mary – canbe seen. The two counts wereamong its donors and Juraj Iis buried there. His Gothicepitaph belongs among theoldest monuments preservedin the church.

By Branislav Covan

HISTORY TALKS

Western SLOVAKIA

Bratislaval CLASSICAL MUSIC: Jarnýkoncert japonsko-slovenského priateľstva /Spring Concert of Japanese-Slovak Friendship – This eventorganised by the JapaneseEmbassy and the local Aca-demy of Performing Artsbrings two outstanding Ja-panese opera singers, tenorKeitaro Mizufune and sopranoKazuki Ohara, performing Ja-panese songs plus arias fromoperas by Tchaikovsky,Dvořák and Smetana, as wellas the song Pieseň o rodnejzemi by G. Dusík and P. Brax-atoris.

Starts: May 26, 19:00;Dvorana music hall, Zochova1. Admission: free (it advisableto book tickets in advance).Tel: 02/5980-0101; www.sk.emd-japan.go.jp.

Bratislaval LIVE MUSIC: Thierry andFriends – A versatile musicianwho hails from Africa, ThierryEbam has become a well-known figure on the local mu-sical scene. His concerts, vary-ing from African percussionpieces to reggae, are a feast ofgood atmosphere and relaxed,friendly fun.

Starts: May 27 20:00; HlavaXXII music bar, Bazová 9. Ad-mission: €5. More info:www.hlava22.sk.

Bratislaval CLASSICAL MUSIC: Večerpiesní / Evening of Songs - Si-mona Eisinger, BernadetteBartos – Eisinger, a young pi-anist and coloratura sopranowho hails from Slovakia butnow sings in Vienna, will joinforces with pianist Bartos toperform works by G. Mahler,E. Křenek, A. Zemlinsky and R.Strauss.

Starts: May 25, 18:00; Moz-art Hall of Austrian Embassy,Ventúrska 10. Admission: free.Tel: 02/5464-1337; www.rakusko.eu/sk.

Bratislaval SHOW ON ICE: Hviezdnyľad / Starry Ice – A troupe offormer world champions infigure skating and currentprofessionals, includingAlexei Yagudin, Ilya Aver-buch, Irina Slutskaya and oth-er familiar names, comes tooffer a spectacular show.

Starts: May 28, 17:00; On-drej Nepela Ice Stadium, Od-bojárov 9. Admission: €14-€44. Tel: 02/5203-3321; www.ticketportal.sk.

Bratislaval EXHIBITION: Mo(nu)mentPart II – In this, the secondpart of a profile exhibition byMilan Vagač, the art studentaddresses the issue of thestatue in public space. Vagačwanders through Bratislava’sstreets, pulling a statue pedes-tal behind him on a string,discovering new contexts anduses for it on his way.

Open: Tue-Sun 14:00-19:00until June 5; Galéria 19, Laza-retská 19. Admission: free. Tel:02/5292-6651; www.galeria19.sk.

Kútyl FOOD FESTIVAL: Festivaldobrého jedla / Festival ofGood Food – The second year ofthis successful festival bringseven more attractions forchildren, a non-stop cinema, acultural programme and funinto the small hours; includ-ing forgotten local delicacies,world cuisine, and more.

Starts: May 28, 10:00-02:00; Radlinského Square.

Admission: free. More info:www.kuty.sk.

Central SLOVAKIA

Žilinal LIVE MUSIC: The KofolaSessions - The Burning Hell,Phoebe Kreutz – Burning Hell,a Canadian band playing di-verse musical styles who pre-viously performed at the 2009Pohoda Festival, is supportedby US singer Phoebe Kreutz.

Starts: May 24, 20:00; Stan-ica Žilina-Záriečie, Závodská3. Admission: €3-€4. Tel: 041/5005-064; www.stanica.sk.

Liptovský Mikulášl EXHIBITION: Písmenkovo –This exhibition for children, or-ganised by the Buvik publishinghouse, shows what magic andintriguing things can be donewith písmenká, i.e. letters ofthe alphabet, in a playful way.

Open: Tue-Sun 10:00-17:00until June 18; Liptovskágaléria P. M. Bohúňa, Tranov–ského 3. Admission: €0.50-€1.Tel: 044/5522-758; www.galerialm.sk.

Eastern SLOVAKIA

Prešovl MODEL CAR RACE: PKP R/CDrift Cup, Round 4 - “AsphaltRevenge” – This race for 1:10scale radio-controlled modelcars is special for being heldon a tarmac surface.

Starts: May 28, 9:00-19:00;ABC Leisure-time Centre.Admission: free. More info:www.rcautopresov.eu.

Košicel BUTTERFLY EXHIBITION:Motýle / Butterflies – An exhib-ition of exotic butterfliespresents various insect speciesfrom all over the world; visitorscan follow the emergence ofbutterflies from their cocoons.

Open: 9:00-17:00 until Ju-ne 30; Exposition Green-house, Mánesova 23. Admis-sion: €2. Tel: 055/2341-667;www.bz.upjs.sk.

By Zuzana Vilikovská

EVENTS COUNTRYWIDE

THE TWO current exhibitions at the Danubiana MeulensteenArt Museum in Čunovo, near Bratislava, present the works ofHungarian artist Ilona Keserü Ilona, in Colour - Joy - Picture (anextract from which is pictured above), and Slovak artist RudolfSikora, in At Last Man Knows. Both exhibitions in the gallery,which is focused on contemporary visual art, represent a mutualcreative dialogue. Until June 12, they can be seen Tue-Sun10:00-20:00, on the ‘Island of Art’ near Vodné dielo/ WaterworksČunovo. For more information, please call 02/6252-8501; or go towww.danubiana.sk. Photo: Courtesy of Danubiana

THE SPRING Jazz Days continue with a concert on May 29 inNitra’s synagogue by Austrian band Hot Pants Road Club(above); the Slovak winner of TV’s Superstar contest KatkaKoščová; and the young, recently discovered Slovak talentVanda. Hot Pants Road Club is an eight-member funk-blues or-chestra which has already put out 10 albums. Katka Koščová hasshifted her repertory from pop to jazz and chanson. Admissionwill be a symbolic €1. For more info not only about this concertbut about the whole spring series, please go to www.bjd.sk.

Photo: Courtesy of BJD

10 CULTURE

I n c o o p e r a t i o n w i t h t h e S l o v a k H y d r o m e t e o r o l o g i c a l I n s t i t u t e

Weather updates and forecasts from across Slovakiacan now be found at www.spectator.sk.

A Slovak’s name day (meniny) is as important as his or her birthday. It is traditional to present friends or co-workers with a small gift, such as chocolates or flowers, and to wish them Všetko najlepšie k meninám (Happy name day)

N A M E D A Y M A Y 2 0 1 1

Monday

Îelmíra

May 23

Tuesday

Ela

May 24

Wednesday

UrbanVivien

May 25

Thursday

Du‰an

May 26

Friday

Iveta

May 27

Saturday

Viliam

May 28

Sunday

Vilma

May 29

May 23 – 29, 2011

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English-language academicswriting about Slovakia, Part III

THE DIVISION of Czechoslov-akia nearly two decades ago in-to Slovakia and the Czech Re-public has contributed to thepublication of an increasingnumber of original English-language academic books byauthors that focus on Slovakia.

The Slovak Spectatorbrings the third part of OwenJohnson’s series reviewingseveral academic books aboutSlovakia.

* * *Few people living in Brat-

islava today can imagine whatthe city was like a centuryago, when the population waspredominantly German, thepolitical leadership was Hun-garian, and Slovaks made upless than one-fifth of the city’sinhabitants. The city wasmost often called Pressburg,its German name.

Pieter C. van Duin, an in-dependent historian of Dutchorigin, has written a bookthat focuses on a key period ofthat change, “CentralEuropean Crossroads: SocialDemocracy and National Re-volution in Bratislava (Press-burg), 1867-1921” (New York:Berghahn Books).

The author is most inter-ested in the first three yearsafter the founding ofCzechoslovakia in 1918, in par-ticular how the new adminis-tration folded the city into thenew state and how the variouspopulations responded to thisprocess. He devotes special at-tention to the social democrat-ic movement in Bratislava.

The author read extens-ively from the newspapers ofthe time to recreate the eventsand people’s reaction to them,and draws on extensive aca-demic research in Czech, Slov-ak, English, German and Hun-garian to discern long-termdevelopmental trends.

Van Duin’s previous work,in addition to several articleson the period he studies here,also includes an article on con-temporary ethnic develop-ments in Slovakia, but alsostudies on national and ethnicdevelopment in South Africain the eighteenth century.

“An exceptional bookabout the history of socialdemocracy in Slovakia and, ina broader geographic context,central Europe,” said veteranhistorian Hans Renner of theUniversity of Groningen. “Therange of sources and literatureused is most impressive.”

***Alexander Maxwell writes

about how language helped tocreate a Slovak identity, butnot in the way Slovak nation-alists have told the story, inhis book “Choosing Slovakia:Slavic Hungary, theCzechoslovak Language & Ac-

cidental Nationalism” (Lon-don & New York: I.B. Tauris).

Slovakia was part of Hun-gary two hundred years agowhen Hungarians started toundergo a national awakening.Hungarian-speakers tried to as-similate the country’s non-Hungarian populations but itsSlavs adhered to a multi-ethnicand multi-lingual idea of thestate where citizens could freelyuse their native languages.

These Slavs willingly re-cognised themselves as Hun-garian citizens who spoke Pan-Slav and Czech dialects. Thisdirectly contradicts the tradi-tional story that Slovak nation-al leaders founded or re-foun-ded the Slovak nation. To dothis he bridges the gap betweenlinguists and historians.

Linguists recognised that aSlovak language could nothave been created in the 18thor 19th century, but somehowbelieved there was a primordi-al Slovak nation. Historians,on the other hand, knew that aSlovak nation could not havebeen created in the 18th and19th centuries, but somehowbelieved a Slovak language hadalways existed.

According to Maxwell,Ľudovít Štúr, who codified adialect of central Slovak in themid 19th century, saw it onlyas reflecting the spokenspeech of part of the Slavic na-tion. Thus he saw it as a dia-lect, not a language.

This dual loyalty to a Slov-ak identity and a larger iden-tity persisted in different formafter the creation ofCzechoslovakia in 1918, ex-plains Maxwell. The over-whelming majority of Slovakswere loyal to both a Slovak na-tion and a Czechoslovak state.He calls this a theory of “mul-tiple and simultaneous na-tional loyalties.”

Maxwell, a historian,political scientist and lin-guist, lectures in the Schoolof History, Philosophy, Polit-ical Science and Internation-al Relations at the Universityof Wellington, New Zealand.

***Zsuzsa Csergo, a political

scientist at George WashingtonUniversity, studies modern

versions of language questionsin “Talk of the Nation: Lan-guage & Conflict in Romania &Slovakia” (Ithaca, N.Y.: CornellU. Press).

“The book speaks to thepower of domestic majorityand minority actors in makingdemocracy work under condi-tions of continued nationalistcompetition,” the authorwrites. “By focusing on do-mestic majority and minoritypolitical elites and parties asthe key agents of change, thisbook contributes to a morebalanced understanding of theway international and do-mestic actors work together tomove multiethnic societiesbeyond cultural division.”

Csergo delineates how theVladimír Mečiar-led govern-ment of newly-independentSlovakia supported the conceptof an ethnically defined Slovaknation. Slovaks and Hungari-ans opposed to him joined to-gether to develop a more inclus-ive definition of what it meansto be Slovak when they came topower democratically in 1998.

“This is an elegant andempirically rich comparativestudy,” notes Professor Valer-ie Bunce of Cornell, one of theleading specialists in the USon eastern European politics.“Perhaps her most importantargument is that strugglesbetween elites and partiesrepresenting the majorityversus the minority kept thenational question alive, whilecontributing to the process ofdemocratic development.”

“Csergo’s contributions areextremely valuable and shouldbe taken seriously by bothscholars and policymakersworking on issues of Europeanintegration and the complexit-ies of multilingual and mul-tinational political com-munity more broadly,’ writesNadya Nedelsky. “Her clearlywritten and detailed accountof the zigzagging paths of lan-guage regulation in education,public spaces and governmentis the most comprehensivetreatment in the English-lan-guage literature.

***Following the comparat-

ive pattern of Kevin Deegan-Krause, who examined Slov-

ak and Czech politics in theirindependent states (see re-view in The Slovak Spectator,Aug. 9), Nadya Nedelsky, inher book “Defining the Sov-ereign Community: TheCzech and Slovak Republics”(University of PennsylvaniaPress), takes a longer histor-ical perspective in an at-tempt to understand why theCzech and Slovak stateschose different definitions ofsovereignty when the oldCzechoslovakia split andwhat that has meant in theensuing years.

“The Czech Constitutionemploys a civic model,” shenotes, “founding the state inthe name of ‘the citizens ofthe Czech Republic,’ whilethe Slovak Constitution usesthe more exclusive ethnicmodel and speaks in thevoice of ‘the Slovak Nation.’”

Nedelsky, an associateprofessor of InternationalStudies at Macalester Col-lege, received her PhD inpolitical science from theUniversity of Toronto in2001. She is currently work-ing as co-editor with LaviniaStan on a two-volume Encyc-lopaedia of TransitionalJustice, under contract withCambridge University Press.

Nedelsky uses six of thenine chapters in the book toshow the different ways inwhich Czechs and Slovakshave understood nationhoodover the course of six differ-ent governing systems in acentury and a half, and howit contributed to their differ-ing definitions of sover-eignty. In turn, she appliesthat understanding to com-pare how Slovaks havetreated the Hungarianminority in Slovakia andhow the Czechs have treatedthe Roma minority in theCzech Republic.

While she acknowledgesthat the politics of the na-tional and socialist govern-ments in Slovakia havediffered from liberal gov-ernments since 1993, Nedel-sky argues that even thoughthe liberals are more tolerantof minorities, they have notoffered a more coherent de-fence of how minority rightsand civic equality relate tothe principle of ethnic sover-eignty. The ethnic model of-fers less support for civil andminority rights than thecivic model does.

“Nedelsky's conclusionschallenge much analysis ofthe region, which tends toexplain ethnic politics by fo-cusing on post communistfactors, especially the role ofopportunistic politicalleaders,” rather than lookingat historical factors, her pub-lisher says. “Looking ahead,Nedelsky offers crucial evid-ence that nationalism mayremain strong in Slovakiaand the Czech Republic, evenin the face of democratisationand EU integration, and is animportant threat to both.”

BY OWEN V. JOHNSONSpecial to the Spectator

Owen V. Johnson Source: Sheila Lalwani

Books in Englishnow available

The Color Purple. AliceWalker. Phoenix Paper-backs, 2004 re-edition.

The winner of thePulitzer Prize for Fiction in1983 and the National BookAward, this is the life story ofCelie, a young black girl borninto poverty and segregationin the American South whoendures a series of blows be-fore meeting Shug Avery, asingerandmagic-maker,fromwhom she learns how to takecontrol of her own destiny,free herself of her traumaticpast and reunite with herloved ones. The book wasmade into a film directed bySteven Spielberg and starredWhoopi Goldberg (as Celie),Danny Glover and OprahWinfrey.

The Lost World. ArthurConan Doyle. OxfordWorld’s Classics, 2008 re-edition.

This classic adventurestory could have been calleda fantasy, had it not beenwritten in 1912 before thatgenre was established. Thetale of a scientific expeditionheaded by Professor Chal-lenger that sets out to ex-plore a mysterious plateau inthe Amazon rainforest re-mains witty, enthralling andattractive a hundred yearson. The adventurers findthemselves trapped in aworld lost in time, inhabitedby dinosaurs and ape-men.Their situation forces themto fight for survival. This edi-tion is complete with ex-planatory notes and exploresthe work’s cultural contexts.

Limitless. Alan Glynn.Faber and Faber, 2011 re-edition (previously pub-lished as The Dark Fields).

The idea seems so attract-ive and pioneering: imaginea drug that made your brainfunction to its full potential,allows you to pick up a for-eign language in a single dayor spot stock-market pat-terns... Eddie Spinota comes

acrosssuch apill; butwhileits be-

nefits materialise quickly, sodo certain side-effects. Andwhen he decides to find otherusers of the drug, he soon dis-covers that they are all dying– or dead. This book was re-cently turned into a film star-ring Bradley Cooper, AbbieCornish and Robert De Niro.

Idioms and PhrasalVerbs; Advanced. RuthGairns and Stuart Redman.Oxford University Press2011.

A handbook for both theclassroom and self-studyenhances the vocabularyand use of idioms, fixedphrases, similes, proverbsand sayings for use inpresentations, discussionand elsewhere. It is recom-mended for intermediate,upper-intermediate and ad-vanced learners.

This column is a selection by TheSlovak Spectator of English-language books recently releasedin Slovakia; it does not representan endorsement of any of thebooks selected. The column isprepared in cooperation with theOxford Bookshop Bratislava,located at Laurinská 9.

Bratislava’s Galéria Z turns 15

ONE OF the three gallerieslocated in the Zichy Palacein central Bratislava isGaléria Z, which this yearcelebrates its 15th birthday.The gallery, which special-ises in contemporary art byboth Slovak and foreignartists, is the dream-come-true of local artist ViktorHulík. Galéria Z’s first publicexhibition opened on March28, 1996, Hulík recalled. Itwas made possible with thesupport of the capital’s OldTown district and AgentúraArtlines, and in fact all thegallery’s financial resourceshave been secured throughsponsorship.

Over the past 15 years,134 exhibitions have presen-ted 1,497 artists from 33countries. The most recent,a commemorative one, fea-tured works by 36 renownedartists who had previouslyexhibited in Galéria Z, in-cluding personalities whohelped shape local art suchas Slovaks Milan Paštéka,Jozef Jankovič, Vladimír

Kompánek, Viera Kraicová,Rudolf Krivoš, AndrejRudavský, Miloš Urbásek,Rudolf Sikora, VladimírGažovič and Rudolf Fila andCzechs Věra Janoušková,Jiří Kolář, Dalibor Chatrnýand Radoslav Kratina.

The gallery's concept isnot narrowly defined, al-though geometric and con-structivist tendencies pre-vail. The methods and tech-niques exhibited are evenmore diverse. One of thegallery’s main achieve-ments is its internationalsummer event Socha a ob-jekt (Statue and Object),which places artworks indirect contact with audi-ences – in streets, gardensand other outdoor locationsin Bratislava – so that peoplewho normally do not visitgalleries see the power ofart. Since 1996, the eventhas grown from a modestlocal activity into a huge in-ternational exposition.

Compiled by Spectator staff

11May 23 – 29, 2011CULTURE

LITERARY CORNER

Tigers in BratislavaBRATISLAVAZoo and itsemployees arehappily wel-coming threecubs born to

the zoo’s protected white ti-gers (Panthera tigris).

“The newborns are healthy,viable and their mother is tak-ing care of them excellently,”Miloslava Šavelová, the zoo’schief, told the TASR newswirein early May.

Despite one cub’s initialproblems gaining weight,when it had to be fed substi-tute milk from a bottle, theirgrowth has otherwise beenvery good.

The mother of thetriplets is five-years-old Shil-ang, who came to Bratislavafrom the zoo in Cora-Lisieux,France in October 2006.

The father of the off-spring, all of which are fe-male, is Achilles, nine yearsold, who came to Bratislavaseveral weeks after Shilang.

“Nature made Shilang amother for the third timenow, this time withtriplets. Achilles is separ-ated from the family as it isusual in natural environ-ments that the male doesnot help in taking care ofand raising the cubs,”Šavelová stated.

A white tiger cub in action. Photo:SITA

Austrian cops nabhigh-speed Slovak

AT THE end of April a Slovakdriver, aged 24, had hisdriver’s licence confiscatedby Austrian police after hewas clocked driving at 230kilometres per hour on ahighway near Salzburg.

The driver’s Chevroletwas monitored by an un-marked police car and hisspeed ranged between 210and 230 kilometres per hour,

the Austrian APA newswirewrote. The speed limit onAustrian highways is 130kilometres per hour.

The “road pirate” was re-quired to leave his licencewith the officers and was al-lowed to continue his trip –to Switzerland – as a passen-ger, after posting bail. Theidentity of the speeder wasnot released.

The exhibition of studio wedding portraits in Malinová. Photo:TASR

Marriage portraits celebrateSlovakia’s 'month of love'

MEMBERS ofthe Union ofWomen ofSlovakia (Úniažien Slovenska,ÚŽS) in the

town of Malinová prepared anexhibition of historical wed-ding portraits to markSlovakia’s “month of love” atthe beginning of May.

Malinová, in the Horná Ni-tra region, has regularly hos-ted an exhibition of handi-crafts or needlework in Mayfor almost 50 years but thisyear photographs of newly-weds were added to the event.

Though the traditionseems to have changed itsform now, in days past almostevery married couple orderedan official portrait by a profes-sional photographer, often

taken in a studio, while wear-ing their wedding attire.

Eva Benková, the chair ofÚŽS Malinová, told the TASRnewswire that many couplestended to frame and hangtheir portraits in a bedroom asa memory of their big day andto commemorate their love.Benková said she was inspirednot only by her own weddingphoto but also by the portraitsof marital bliss taken of hermother and grandmother andthought it would be nice toshow off her old photographsto others. She added that shehad no idea how successful theidea would be among otherresidents.

Almost 50 portraits wereoffered, mostly black andwhite, made in period studios.Some of them had been colour-

ised, a popular trend beforethe advent of colour photo-graphy. The oldest photographwas from the 1930 marriage ofFlorián Schön, a Malinová res-ident. Several people alsooffered unframed, smallerportraits from their weddings.

Local visitors reportedlyspent a lot of time in friendlyquarrels attempting to guessthe identity of those in thephotographs. The exhibitionturned out to be a testimony toan older period and an inter-esting historical display notonly about people but alsoabout fashion – about thewedding attire of brides andgrooms in changing periods.Benková said the exhibitionwas a great success and thinksit should be repeated fromtime to time.

Would you like a church in Kvetnica?THE BUILDING of theChurch of St Helen in thePoprad suburb of Kvet-nica, which is owned bySeniorpark, a non-profitorganisation that oper-

ates a seniors’ home in the town, will bedonated to any organisation that willmaintain the church’s original purpose.

The Poprad Roman Catholic parishhad signed a 15-year agreement to rentthe church from Seniorpark at an annualcost of a single symbolic euro last Au-gust, and Anton Opatovský, the adminis-trator of the parish, told the SITA news-wire that he had no idea why Seniorparkhad now terminated the lease and an-nounced an open competition to donatethe church building to another organisa-tion, adding that his parish would seek toobtain ownership of the building.

Representatives of the non-profit or-ganisation made no comment to the me-

dia but the head of Seniorpark, AdelaDovalovská, posted a statement onSeniorpark’s website.

“Not everything said by a priest dur-ing a mass in church is the naked truth.Thus, I decided as a human being, as acitizen, as a believer, to donate thechurch to a foundation, religion, civic as-sociation, or non-profit organisation thatacts in compliance with moral and ethic-al principles, does not manipulate, lie,hurt intentionally, connive, and thathelps selflessly. Because a church shouldnot be a place of hatred and a cradle ofevil, it should in no case be demolishedand it must serve believers who are notunder the influence of envy and malice, Idecided to donate it, instead of liquidat-ing it,” the statement reads.

The Church of St Helen was built in1910 and consecrated by the Bishop ofSpiš. It served as a place of worship untilthe early 1950s when it became a storage

place for government propaganda docu-ments and bulletins for the next 40 years.

The church began to hold RomanCatholic masses again after 1989. Churchmembers from Kvetnica and Poprad re-constructed the church and furnished itanew in the 1990s. At that time the own-er of the building was the Institute forRespiratory Diseases. Later, ownershipof the church building changed handsseveral times until it subsequently wentto Seniorpark.

Seniorpark said it would form acommittee to evaluate potential owners,who have been asked to state three reas-ons why they should be chosen, and tospecify their goals and set out how thebuilding will be used.

The non-profit also stated that anyfuture owner must agree not to assignownership of the building to anyone elsefor 50 years and to then return it back toSeniorpark.

Milestonefor track

ON MAY 11,1966 a spe-cial traintravelledfrom Uzhgo-rod in the

USSR to Haniska, nearKošice, with a governmentdelegation. It was the in-augural journey on the firstbroad-gauge railway trackbuilt in Czechoslovakia.The 95 kilometres of trackwere opened 45 years agoprimarily to transport ironore to what was then calledthe Eastern Slovak Steel-works (VSŽ), but is nowknown as U.S. Steel Košice,the TASR newswire wrote.

The countries of theformer Soviet Unionmostly use broad-gaugerailways – as do Finland,Spain and Portugal andmany Asian countries –with a width of 1,520 mil-limetres. Czechoslovakia,along with another 60 per-cent of the world, usesstandard-gauge tracks of1,435 millimetres.

The need arose to buildthe broad-gauge track wheniron ore began to be trans-ported from the Soviet Uni-on to the Košice steelworks,known then as VSŽ.

The broad-gauge linebegins in Uzhgorod, thencrosses the border at thevillage of Maťovce beforecontinuing directly to thesteelworks south of Košice.

Construction of thetrack commenced onMarch 16, 1964, and trialoperation of the railwaystarted on May 1, 1966.

As the track was builtvery hastily, numerousflaws later surfaced andservices have, on occasion,had to be suspended forcritical repairs.

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AROUND SLOVAKIAcompiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports

12 FEATUREMay 23 – 29, 2011