Small businesses cut out in Váhostav case

Transcription

1 CONSTRUCTION TRANSPORT On sale now NEWS Net nationalism The internet is fertile ground for extremist hate speech. Law enforcement faces a new challenge as much of it takes place on websites that are stored on foreign servers. pg 2 Vol. 21, No. 37 Monday, Monday, February April 6, 9, Sunday, April February 19, , FOCUS of this issue Sports financing crisis peaks BY RADKA MINARECHOVÁ The right way The Pontis Foundation gave out the annual Via Bona awards to the country s most responsible businesses. Accenture and Alfa Bio took home the top awards. pg 3 OPINION Soft power President Andrej Kiska was elected one year ago. Anyone who genuinely supports pluralist democracy should be happy with the role he has played since taking office. pg 5 BUSINESS FOCUS Now boarding Growth at the Košice airport was matched by decline in Bratislava last year. Some are hopeful that the growing presence of discount airlines will boost passenger numbers in years to come. pg 6 Speed boats Now largely the domain of tourist cruises the Danube offers untapped potential for commuters. Bratislava would benefit from an upgrade in such services. pg 7 CULTURE Holiday fear No need for women to be afraid if loved ones approach carrying a switch in the coming days. Slovakia s Easter whipping tradition harkens back to an old pagan ritual. pg 10 SELECT FOREX RATES benchmark as of March 19 CANADA CAD 1.36 CZECH REP. CZK RUSSIA RUB GREAT BRITAIN GBP 0.72 HUNGARY HUF JAPAN CZK POLAND PLN 4.06 USA USD 1.07 Slovakia marks the 70th anniversary of liberation and the end of WWII. Small businesses cut out in Váhostav case VÁHOSTAV-SK, one of the country s biggest construction firms, is drawing headlines amid plans to pay just 15 percent of its debts to small business subcontractors as part of its restructuring plan. The plan has angered not only the entrepreneurs but has drawn criticism from both Prime Minister Robert Fico and the political opposition. As Fico strategises ahead of elections next spring, this places him in the position of criticising Juraj Široký, an alleged sponsor of his Smer party with a controlling interest in Váhostav-SK. Fico has declared that his cabinet will support an investigation into the restructuring. We are perceiving and feeling that in the case of the Váhostav-SK management there might have been a question of criminal behaviour, BY JANA LIPTÁKOVÁ Fico said at a press conference on March 27, as cited by the SITA newswire. Fico is distancing himself from Široký. I do not need any sponsors or businessmen. What do I have with Mr Široký? asked Fico, as cited by the online edition of the Denník N daily. The police have already started investigating Váhostav-SK, which under the governments of Fico as well as his predecessor Iveta Radičová, has won several large state contracts for highway construction. In some of those cases it offered prices below those estimated by experts. The results have led to the company failing to pay many of its subcontractors. The company is ready to provide all information and will cooperate with investigators, the company responded via spokesman Tomáš Halán. Váhostav-SK plans to pay small subcontractors, those with unsecured debts, just 15 percent of the million that is owed, a total of 15.7 million and this only over the courseoffiveyears.thecourtshasnot approved the restructuring plan yet. Transparency International Slovakia, in cooperation with Bisnode data company, has uncovered the complicated ownership structure of Váhostav-SK, which leads to shell companies in New Zealand and Cyprus and even five private persons based in Costa Rica, SITA wrote. See FIRM pg 9 Centre-right still looking for unity BY MICHAELA TERENZANI WITH campaign season in the run up to next spring s general election around the corner, the weak and divided centre-right has less than a year to come up with a strategy for challenging Prime Minister Robert Fico s ruling Smer party. It s plain to see that with the fewer subjects running [in the elections], the higher the probability that the centre-right bloc will be stronger after the election, Grigorij Mesežnikov, political analyst and president of the Institute for Public Affairs non-governmental think tank, told The Slovak Spectator. Though there are fewer parties that look to be contenders than in past years, it was nonetheless on the rise in recent days as two new political parties appeared near the end of March. In the meantime, parties have begun talking about possible election alliances and joint candidates. Talking cooperation Most-Híd, for instance, is concrete in its intention to build an alternative to the ruling Smer together with the Christian Democrats (KDH) and Sieť, Most-Híd leader Béla Bugár said in late March. See RIGHT pg 2 Photo: TASR DOWNHILL skier Adam Žampa and his brother Andreas were considering leaving the Slovak ski team and representing Russia instead. The potential move came in the wake of continued criticism of how sports are financed in Slovakia and prompted the government to intervene in the dispute between the Žampas and the Slovak Skiing Association (SLA). The brothers cited a lack of financial resources and insufficient conditions for training and preparing for competitions as their primary motivation for jumping to the Russian team. After a week-long dispute, Adam Žampa has said he will stay on the Slovak national team but will train with Russians. My primary aim is to constantly work on myself and improve, Žampa said on March 29, as quoted by the TASR newswire. Žampa is not the only Slovak athlete who has complained about conditions in the country. The Education Ministry and Speaker of Parliament Peter Pellegrini have introduced a draft law, which should make financing of sports more transparent. Read more on pg 3 GDP growth estimates revised up BY JANA LIPTÁKOVÁ SLOVAKIA s economy is expected to grow in 2015 faster than originally forecast, benefiting from quantitative easing by the European Central Bank, which weakens the European currency, the euro, and low crude oil prices. The National Bank of Slovakia has upgraded its forecast from January forecast of the growth of the gross domestic product by 0.3 percentage points, up from 2.9 percent to 3.2 percent for Whereas the positive impact of the reduction of oil prices on the economy has been lower than expected in the previous prognosis due to the slight increase in crude oil euro prices, the fully realised programme of extended purchase of assets will have a positive impact on the Slovak economy mostly by virtue of higher eurozone demand and the weaker euro exchange rate, NBS Governor Jozef Makúch said on March 31 when introducing the latest prognosis. See NBS pg 4

2 2 April 6 19, 2015 NEWS Extremism shifts online Cops cleared of shooting at students THE 2013 incident that saw police shooting at a car filled with students as they drove down a highway is now closed, after prosecutors cleared the police of any wrongdoing. Despite the decision, Interior Minister Robert Kaliňák paid compensation of 3,000 to each of the students from his personal money. We think there was a chain of errors committed by the police that resulted in shooting at the car of the innocent students, Ivan Netík, director of the press department at the Interior Ministry, told the press. So we believe that they should be compensated in some way. The case goes back to June 24, 2013 when four students were driving a car that was sought by the police. It was originally owned by Milan Ďuriš who was sought for a double murder, but at the time of the incident it had not been his property for more than six years. The police saw the car at the D2 highway driving towards the Czech Republic and wanted to stop it. The student who was at the wheel said he did not know that the police patrol was attempting to stop him. At first, he stopped, but after a policeman began waving at him, he believed that it was a signal that he may go. After the car began moving, however, the police officers drew their pistols and began firing at the car. The officer claimed that by waving at the driver, he actually wanted to signal him to leave the car. The prosecutor general investigated the case and its conclusion was that the police action was legitimate and legal and criminal prosecution of the case was halted. But the Interior Ministry admits that two mistakes occurred. The first one was that the police should have not sought to stop the car when the mistake was on the side of police who did not update data about the car in the database. The second mistake was that the policemen were not able to agree on whose jurisdiction the case belonged to, either Bratislava Region or Žilina Region. As a consequence the students had to wait three hours sitting at the highway. When personally confronted by the students in April 24, Kaliňák refused to apologise to them. Currently however he has apologised to the driver personally and via Karol Spišák, the students lawyer, to the others. Because prosecution of the case was halted, the students can get compensation from the state budget only for damages to the car caused by the shooting of about 1,800. That is the reason why the three students reeceived compensation from Kaliňák s pocket. Out of the four involved students only three requested compensation. Both sides are satisfied with this agreement, we ve shaken hands, and thereby we consider the whole case concluded, Spišák told the press. Ministry to cover Čentéš pay out THE OFFICE of President Andrej Kiska will pay financial compensation plus court fees to prosecutor Jozef Čentéš in line with the verdict of the Constitutional Court, which found that former president Ivan Gašparovič violated Čentéš s rights. In June 2011, Čentéš was elected by MPs to the post of general prosecutor by 79 out of a total of 89 deputies. Gašparovič first delayed and then later refused to appoint him. In 2011, Čentéš filed a complaint contesting the inactivity of Gašparovič. In December 2014, a senate of the Constitutional Court invalidated the decision of Gašparovič, ruling that Čentéš fundamental rights were violated. Furthermore, the court ordered that Čentéš should receive 60,000 in compensation, a sum that had to be paid by the end of March, the TASR newswire reported. The President s Office budget was not drafted with such an expenditure in mind and it has asked the Finance Ministry for an extraordinary one-time financial subsidy. The Finance Ministry complied with the request, said the President s Office spokesman, Roman Krpelan. Gašparovič called upon Kiska to protect the office budget by turning to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg to evaluate whether or not the Constitutional Court arrived at an appropriate verdict. If he (Kiska) won t do this, I will, as a participant in the procedure, Gašparovič told TASR, adding that Kiska should deposit the money and pay it out only if an adverse decision is reached by the European court. Čentéš had already announced that he will donate the money to charity. Compiled by BY ROMAN CUPRIK WHILE the amount of racially motivated crime is declining, extremists are adopting increasingly sophisticated ways of spreading their message online, experts say, and the government is taking this into account as it has adopted a new policy to combat extremism. It is hard to prove that extremist groups violate the law and they often have political ambitions, according to the Concept of the Fight against Extremism adopted by the government on March 18. The development of criminality shows that displays of racist discrimination and other forms of hate crime has recently been shifting from the street to the virtual area, states the strategy. The number of reported crimes related to extremism has decreased. In 2014 police reported 40 crimes of extremism while in 2013 it reported 64 such crimes; in 2012 police recorded 49 such crimes. There Extremists marching in Bratislava on March 14. are exactly a dozen extremist groups operating in Slovakia, including political parties such as People s Party Our Slovakia (ĽSNS) or sport and paramilitary groups such as Slovak Levies or Action Group Vzdor, according to the document. NGOs dealing with extremism approached by The Slovak Spectator say that formal punishment and prosecution of such people is not enough. More than anything else, public and political figures should actively condemn such promotion of extremist behaviour. I don t think that the eye of Big Brother should be the main tool against spreading hatred on the internet, Laco Oravec from the Milan Šimečka Foundation (NMŠ) told The Slovak Spectator. Extremism online The internet is a strategic place for extremist groups because they do not have access to space in mainstream media. Moreover, young people who are more active on the internet tend to spread those ideas, according to Tomáš Nociar, a political scientist focusing on extremism. Of course, using the internet in this regard is nothing new; however this phenomenon has become more relevant in recent years, Nociar told The Slovak Spectator, because the number of people using the internet every day is increasing. The strategy proposes to improve cooperation with internet providers to better track extremist statements and material that spreads via the internet. The Bratislava Without Nazis initiative currently researches statements published on Slovak websites and social networks and there are dozens of them which could violate the law, according to the group. See WEB pg 5 RIGHT: Campaign for 2016 begins now Continued from pg 1 Smer is to be blamed for the huge amount of problems Slovakia faces and needs to be replaced by politics with a legible programme and the courage to stick with it, Bugár said. To build a functioning government after the 2016 elections, it needs to be composed of parties with programme proximity and the ability to cooperate. Sieť leader Radoslav Procházka, a former KDH member and a failed presidential candidate, however, dismissed such talk saying that it is too early to talk about post-election coalitions. He did not name any potential partners for his Sieť party and only said that they will be ready to cooperate with others that get a mandate from voters and who will identify with the Sieť idea of the state as a space of practical service for citizens, as quoted by the SITA newswire. Most-Híd s idea of cooperation among the named three parties is an attempt to revitalise the People s Platform, a previous cooperative body, political analyst Juraj Marušiak of the Slovak Academy of Sciences told The Slovak Spectator. The People s Platform was a grouping of three centre right parties Most, KDH, and the Slovak Democratic and Christian Union (SDKÚ). The latter member has seen numerous defections in recent months and looks unlikely to reach parliament on its own after the next election. At the same time, Marušiak noted that neither Sieť nor Most-Híd can be sure that they will make it to the parliament in 2016, given the current development of preferences. The polls Opinion polls published in March show varying voters preferences on the right side of the political spectrum. In both published polls, by the MVK and Polis agencies, Smer oscillates around 38 percent. But while Sieť came second in the Polis poll with9.3percentofthevote,inthemvkpoll it stood at 7.8 percent, down 4 percentage points compared to November KDH finished second in the MVK poll, with 11.5 percent of the vote. In the Polis poll it received 8 percent, the same as Most-Híd. In the MVK poll, the Ordinary People and Independent Personalities (OĽaNO) would also make it to parliament with 7.7 percent, along with Most-Híd with 7.1 percent, the Party of Hungarian Community (SMK) with 5.4 percent and the Slovak National Party (SNS) with 5.1 percent, the TASR newswire wrote. Of the current parties sitting in the parliament, neither SDKÚ nor Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) received enough support to pass the 5-percent threshold needed to gain parliamentary seats, receiving 3.5 and 2.6 percent, respectively. The Polis poll showed OĽaNO in third position with 8.8 percent and the SNS would also get some seats, with its 6.2 percent of votes. Other parties would garner less than the 5 percent necessary to reach parliament: SMK polled at 4.7 percent, SaS at 3.8 percent, NOVA at 2.8 percent, and SDKÚ at 2.2 percent. KDH embraces Hlina Despite some polls suggesting otherwise, KDH remains the strongest opposition party at this time, analysts contend, as it can still rely on its stable electorate. Recently, the party acquired a new member in its parliamentary caucus when Alojz Hlina, elected to the parliament on the slate of OĽaNO, joined the KDH caucus on March 24 and launched talks about possible election cooperation with the party. Hlina, who after leaving the OĽaNO caucus founded his own party, Citizens, has not attracted much voter support over the past months and failed to make it in the polls. He did not rule out the possibility that he might appear on KDH s election slate. He claimed his party will not go into the election race alone. Definitely this alliance shouldn t harm KDH, Mesežnikov said about Hlina s joining its caucus, explaining that Hlina has profiled himself as a conservative person with traditional, slightly nationalistic values. Perhaps they are attempting to address younger voters, as Hlina with his happenings and actions has been attracting interest. Marušiak, who called Hlina a political clown, opined that Hlina is unlikely to make a career in the party, since he is too new in KDH and at the same time too individualistic. The newcomers Hlina s Citizens party has not appeared in the polls so far, similar to two other parties recently founded on the right. The Slovak Civic Coalition SKOK! (the acronym translates as Jump! in English) elected Juraj Miškov chairman in late March. A former economy minister he was formerly affiliated with SaS. Miškov has financed all the campaigns of the party so far from his own pocket, TASR reported. Other SaS renegades, Martin Chren and Daniel Krajcer, have joined up. Another party, Šanca (Chance) elected its founder Eva Babitzová, briefly a member of SDKÚ, as its chairwoman on March 30, TASR reported. Babitzová, a former director of Radio Expres, was commissioned to be at Šanca s helm until the founding congress scheduled for June. MP Viliam Novotný (ex-sdkú), Hriňová mayor Stanislav Horník (also ex- SDKÚ) and tax expert Jarka Lukačovičová are currently vice-chairs. Observers however see little room for the new centre-right parties on what is already a splintered scene. SKOK and Šanca cannot be considered strong players yet because they have not appeared in the polls so far, Mesežnikov noted, adding that this is not a situation comparable to the one that arose after Sieť was founded.

3 Skier re-opens debate on sports financing Amid complaints, new law will seek to make funding for athletes more transparent BY RADKA MINARECHOVÁ A PROPOSED new law on financing and management of sports, recently introduced by the Education Ministry, may calm critics who point to lack of support for Slovak athletes representing the country at top events. The debate was re-opened in mid-march as Adam Žampa, a top Slovak downhill skier, said he was considering leaving the Slovak team and joining Russia as he sought improved financial support and conditions for training. In Slovakia, you can get to a certain level in sport, but alas, my acquaintances, family friends and especially parents cannot secure this forever (mainly financially), Žampa wrote on Facebook in mid- March. I want to personally progress, to move forward in my career, and, unfortunately, this is not possible in Slovakia. There will certainly be people who will understand this but also those who will be against. A winner of several medals, who posted fifth and sixth place finishes at the Sochi Winter Olympics in 2014, explained that he races almost solely thanks to the resources provided by his parents and sponsors, the SITA newswire wrote. Though he finally said on March 29 that he will not leave the Slovak national team (but will train with Russians), his dispute with the Slovak Skiing Association (SLA) is only a tip of the iceberg amid a series of complaints from top athletes about the conditions the athletes face. In response, Speaker of Parliament Peter Pellegrini and Education Minister Juraj Draxler introduced a new law on sports on March 31, which seeks to make their financing more transparent. The aim is to create a standard environment in which we would not witness similar steps of some associations and clubs that have occurred in past days, Pellegrini told the press, as quoted by SITA. Parliament is expected to discussthelawinautumnand, if passed, the new rules would come into force in 2016, Pellegrini said. Adam Žampa Žampa draws attention After the media reported that Žampa and his brother Andreas were considering defecting to the Russian team, which reportedly offered better training conditions and even financial support, Prime Minister Robert Fico entered the debate. He met with Tomáš Žampa, father and coach of the Žampa brothers, on March 24 and discussed the situation in the SLA and the athlete s future, the Denník N daily reported on its website. The PM feels sorry about the departure of the skier, and I feel sorry too, Tomáš Žampa told Denník N. We will work on creating conditions for Adam. Meanwhile, Draxler decided that ministry inspectors will soon go to the SLA and check the management of funds that the ministry sends to the association. Regardless of this case [the dispute between the SLA and Žampa brothers over financing and conditions] it needs to be said that the system of financing sports is not set correctly and it is necessary to change the rules to make financing more transparent, Draxler said, as quoted by the TASR newswire. The SLA welcomed the planned inspection, saying it will help the public learn more about the system for financing the association and also stop misleading information about financing of the individual disciplines and skiers, SLA head František Repka said, as reported by TASR. Others complain too Žampa is not the only skier who has considered leaving Slovakia. In March 2012 Veronika Velez-Zuzulová also said she may opt to represent another country. We have two possibilities either to finish with skiing or leave, her father and coach Timotej Zuzula told the press in 2012, as quoted by TASR. The apparent reason also was problems with the SLA, with Velez-Zuzulová s team saying that she did not have appropriate training conditions to achieve success. At the time she was receiving 10,000 per year from the SLA, with other funds being given by sponsors, TASR wrote. In the end, she remained on the Slovak team. More recently, Lucia Tomečková, a former reporter at the public-service Radio and Television of Slovakia (RTVS), wrote a letter to Fico in which, among other things, she commented on the very poor condition for her daughter who represents Slovakia in swimming. We as parents of the Slovak representatives have learned very quickly to arrange nearly everything because the conditions for athletes in this country are so catastrophic that we have to learn to live with them, identify them and solve them really quickly, Tomečková wrote, as quoted by the Omediach.com website. In an opinion piece the Sme daily summed up that Slovak sports are overshadowed by various sport associations, unions and committees, which are part of a nontransparent, complex and hard to figure out system. Financing is crucial, Sme wrote, but lack of communication, nonsystematic work and other phenomena also contribute to the poor situation. Žampa is only the tip of the iceberg, Sme stated on March 22. Sme also pointed in its opinion piece to recent awards for athletes that supposedly listed everybody who had received a medal, including in sports like darts and arm wrestling. But the first version of the list missed the NEWS April 6 19, Photo: TASR names of tennis player Dominika Cibulková, who finished second in the Australian Open in 2014 and also cyclist Peter Sagan, who, among other accomplishments, won the green jersey at last year s Tour de France. They were recognised only after the list was revised. Proposed changes to the law The aim of the new law is to make the use of money allocated for sports more transparent, Draxler said. One of the cornerstones will be a sports information system as a public inspection tool, Draxler explained, as quoted by TASR. He added that it should allow members of the sports associations to have enough information about their activities. Among the most important proposed changes in the new law is that each sports association will need to appoint a controller who will be the highest inspection authority. These controllers will check the use of public money and if they find any imperfections, they will call on the associations management to remedy them, Education Ministry spokeswoman Beáta Dupaľová Ksenzsighová told The Slovak Spectator. Moreover, the law proposes establishing a permanent court that would decide on cases connected to the sport. If a sports association violates the rules, it may lose state financial support until it changes course, she added. The associations will also have to publish their management structure and reports from meetings, as well as to hold a meeting at least once a year, TASR wrote. Since the proposed rules concern only non-financial affairs, an expert group still needs to discuss the financial aspects which should propose ways to find resources and create a motivational environment for the private sector in order to make it also support sports more, Pellegrini said, as quoted by TASR. One of the possibilities is to establish one fund for sports that would then redistribute the finances among the various sports associations. It is also proposed to gradually stop the practice of some state-run firms to financially support only selected sports events. Under the proposed rules, these firms would send funds allocated to sports directly to the Education Ministry which is responsible for sports, TASR reported. The proposed financing plan should be finished in a month, Dupaľová Ksenzsighová said. Pontis hands out Via Bona awards Ceremony recognises most socially responsible firms BY JANA LIPTÁKOVÁ CONSULTING firm Accenture and food producer Alfa Bio took the top awards at the Pontis Foundation s 15th annual Via Bona awards on March 26. The awards, with a name that translates as good path from the original Latin, drew President Andrej Kiska along with other key representatives of the country s business and social communities. In a short speech President Kiska recalled an old Indian proverb saying the unhappiest people are those who think about their own happiness and the happiest are those who think about the happiness of others. I m very glad that in this room there are people who feel that to be responsible means also a moral duty to give back a part of their success, said Kiska, who himself as a successful businessman launched the Good Angel philanthropic project. In total 61 companies enrolled in the competition for the 2014 Via Bona awards in seven categories. Juries for individual awards selected winners from 23 companies which had advanced to the second round. A novelty this year was a new design for the award prepared by Mikuláš Zahatňanský, who created a wooden circle garnished with stars from silver wire. The circular shape of the award is meant to express human life and the stars represent people s zest for things that are bigger than themselves. The Main Award for a Responsible Large Corporation went to Accenture, a management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company. The firm works to develop people s skills, helping them to find jobs via its Skills to Succeed programme. It also uses computer technologies to decrease its environmental Via Bona awards ceremony. footprint and is part of the Fund for Transparent Slovakia that supports watchdog organisations. All the companies in the final round showed high standards and thus differences were in nuances and not qualitative jumps, said Zuzana Čaputová from the jury when commenting about the process of selecting the winner in this category. In the end we considered that the criterion that would decide about the winner is about what message we want to send to the society by granting this award to this company. We consider as interesting and inspiring that the company chose a path, which is not the simplest, maybe to the detriment of their profits, but it sends by this a principal message from the company itself to zero tolerance of corruption. The Main Award for a Responsible Small or Medium- Sized Enterprise went to Banská Bystrica-based Alfa Bio that started its business in 1991 with the idea of helping to change dietary habits in Slovakia and it now sells its products in Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland. The company,with tofu as one of its main products, has its own well, recycles its water and operates its own compressed natural gas (CNG) fueling station for its cars. Changing perceptions Lenka Surotchak, director of the Pontis Foundation, said that the perception of corporate philanthropy and corporate social responsibility has been changing in Slovakia with more and more companies going beyond their legal duties by caring for their employees, helping the community in which they operate, behaving responsibly toward the environment and dealing with socially difficult topics. I am thankful for each company that has enrolled in the competition because they understand that any company or business will be not successful if our country and our society are in decline, said Surotchak in her speech. See VIA pg 5 Photo: Courtesy of Pontis

4 4 April 6 19, 2015 BUSINESS Foreign investors looking elsewhere THE POSITION of Slovakia as an attractive country for foreign investments in central and eastern Europe worsened last year based on results of an annual survey organised by foreign chambers of commerce in Slovakia. Slovakia slipped to the second position while the Czech Republic has overrun it, finishing first. In total, 167 companies attended the survey conducted by foreign chambers of commerce of Germany, Austria, US, France, the Netherlands, Sweden and the trade department of the Austrian Embassy to Slovakia in February. In the international competition of localities for investments, Slovakia is still relatively quite well, said Vladimír Slezák, president of the Slovak-German Chamber of Commerce (SNOPK), as cited in the press release when commenting on the results of the survey, but adding that it is not enough to maintain a status quo when Slovakia is prepared for more intense creation of innovation only in a limited scope. Investors explain worsening of Slovakia s ranking by pointing out that while the Czech Republic has focused on infrastructure projects and efforts to curb bureaucracy, Slovakia has introduced the minimum tax, and increased bureaucracy and labour costs. Moreover, as most companies have their parent companies in Austria and Germany, the geographic position of the Czech Republic is more favourable compared to that of Slovakia. When listing Slovakia s advantages surveyed companies listed Slovakia s membership in the European Union, hardworking and productive labour force willing to work for relatively favourable costs as well as availability and quality of local suppliers. Slovakia s exports lose momentum DURING previous years, exporters from Slovakia have succeeded more and more to establish themselves on foreign markets, but last year winning of market shares ended. The Finance Ministry s Financial Policy Institute (IFP) sees weakening of currencies of Slovakia s trade partners and curbed car production due to modernisation and change of production lines behind Slovakia s exports losing momentum. Slovakia, as a small open economy, is significantly dependent on foreign trade, Ján Šilan, analyst with IFP wrote in his analysis from March 25, recalling that foreign trade was a significant source of economic growth especially during the financial and economic crisis when Slovakia managed to ADVERTISEMENT maintain economic growth in spite of a recession in the eurozone. Between 2009 and 2013 the Slovak economy grew 10.9 percent, while net export contributed to it by as much as 9.8 percentage points. Over the course of last year the contributions of foreign demand went down markedly, with the contribution of exports to growth in GDP being zero, or even slightly negative, Šilan wrote. Slovakia s exports are relatively strongly concentrated among some sectors where those of machinery, appliances, cars and metals and metal products make up two thirds of Slovakia s exports. Compiled by Leading local Microsoft partner, with ERP solution Microsoft Dynamics AX2012 the first Microsoft Dynamics AX can help drive productivity because it s so simple to learn and use, straight forward to implement, and quick to adapt. Implementing Microsoft Dynamics AX will drive long-term value for your business through a strong return on investment (ROI), lower cost of ownership, and quicker time to value. Dynamix Consult s.r.o. (associated with XAPT Group) GBC II, Galvaniho 7/B, Bratislava, Slovakia tel.: / info@dynamixconsult.com SP013297/022 Žilina hospital director resigns amid crisis BY ROMAN CUPRIK FEW expected Žilina Faculty Hospital Director Štefan Volák to resign on March 21 in the wake of a mass walkout by doctors and nurses, but he did and hospital s troubles have entered a new phase. A total of 24 of 25 nurses decided to leave the hospital due to an excessive number of overtime hours while demanding that Volák resign on March 21. They followed 13 doctors at the hospital s internal medicine ward who had filed their resignations in early March in protest against what they deemed to be cost concerns dictating patient care. Prime Minister Robert Fico personally engaged in the problems surrounding the hospital and called Health Minister Viliam Čislák to sack Volák, the PM said during a debate on Slovak Radio on March 21. I contacted Minister Čislák and told him: Mr Minister execute steps for the instant replacement of Žilina Hospital s head, Fico told Slovak Radio. Health analysts have agreed that Fico s statement amounts to little more than populism, but also say it raises concerns about who is really in charge of state hospitals. Doctors met the press after leaving announcement. Photo: TASR Apparently no heads of state hospitals are autonomous in their decisions, Tomáš Szalay of the medical think tank Health Policy Institute told The Slovak Spectator. It s wrong. Meanwhile the new hospital head Pavol Drugaj told doctors that if they want to leave they are free to go. Difficult weeks for Žilina Faculty Hospital The hospital began making headlines after 15 of 19 doctors of at department of internal medicine handed in their notices, citing a lack of beds and poor hygienic conditions on March 3. Two later retracted their notices. There is a situation that patients have a waiting list for a shower and some of them take one at around 3:00, said the head of the Medical Trade Union Association (LOZ), Peter Visolajský, to press, as quoted by the SITA newswire. This department has 96 beds while there are at least 100 patients every day. Twenty-five nurses opted to leave the hospital on March 21, citing management s incompetence and failure to address problems that have been accumulating at the hospital for a long time, said Slovak Nurses and Midwives Chamber (SKSaPA) head Iveta Lazorová. The nurses urged the facility s management to cut their overtime hours and to increase the number of nurses in the intensive care unit as well as in the hospital as a whole so that the wards can function properly. Subsequently Čislák inquired into the situation at the hospital in Žilina, ministry spokeswoman Zuzana Čižmáriková told the TASR newswire on the same day. He called on the director to assume personal responsibility for the situation that has arisen, Čižmáriková said, as quoted by TASR. The director has complied with this call and resigned. Despite Volák s departure, on March 23 another 39 nurses filed their notices with the Žilina hospital, SITA wrote, including those from emergency and post-surgery wards. The head of the Union of Nurses and Midwives (OZ- SaPA), Monika Kavecká, specified that the reason for the latest notices is the unsure development of the situation in the Žilina hospital, as well as a statement from 20 nurses heading wards, who on March 20 supported Margita Porubčanská, the deputy for nursing who allegedly had kept lying also to the public about the real situation in the medical facility. Drugaj met with nurses on March 31 but the only result of the discussion was that they agreed on the date for another meeting set on April 16. See CARE pg 9 NBS: Weak euro to fuel exports Continued from pg 1 He added that the quantitative easing (QE) launched by the European Central Bank (ECB) is likely to have a positive impact on Slovak economy in the form of 0.4 percent GDP growth in 2015 and 0.2 percent in Finance Minister Peter Kažimír and Prime Minister Robert Fico perceive the upgraded forecast as encouraging, while the latter said that at such growth will spur larger changes on the labour market. At economic growth above 3 percent we can expect a natural creation of new work places and a reduction in the unemployed, Fico said, as cited by the TASR newswire. The NBS predicts a dynamic growth of work places especially in the service sector, but notes all should benefit from the improved growth. Rising domestic demand also fuels employment, which is increasing quicker than expected. We expect 22,000 jobs to be created in 2015, said NBS Vice Governor Ján Tóth, adding that average unemployment rate could be 12 percent in 2015 and drop to 10 percent by Kažimír appraised the fact that the country s economic growth has not been driven exclusively by foreign demand but that the domestic demand strengthening. The structure of the growth is more balanced and healthier that any time before, he said, as cited by SITA. NBS also expects real wages to grow also because of negative inflation of the -0.3 percent forecast for Salaries will rise quicker particularly in the health care and education sectors and should align gradually with labour productivity, said Tóth. In 2015, nominal wages are likely to grow 2.6 percent. Reforms needed The central bank believes that Slovakia will benefit from the ECB s 1 trillion bond-buying programme and Makúch is confident that the ECB will find enough quality bonds to meet its targeted 60 billion worth of monthly purchases. We re meeting our buying volume targets, in terms of quality of purchased bonds, he said. He warned that this programme is not any substitute for the structural changes needed in some eurozone economies. In no way is QE to replace insufficient reform efforts by eurozone governments when carrying out structural reforms and keeping rules of budgetary responsibility, said Makúch, because the EQ-supported growth of economy will not last forever. Renáta Konečná, general director of the Department of Monetary and Economic Analysis at the NBS, told public broadcaster RTVS that these reforms should target maintaining and improving competitiveness. This means that these are important reforms on the labour market and from the viewpoint of simplicity of hiring and firing employees, said Konečná. And from the viewpoint of Slovakia it is also important to increase drawing of EU funds which help the economy in terms of the growth of investments and support of sustainable growth in the future. By the numbers Slovakia s GDP grew 2.4 percent in The last time Slovakia registered an economic growth exceeding 3 percent was in The NBS predicts that the economy will grow 3.2 percent in 2015 to be followed by 3.8 percent in 2016, and 3.5 percent in The unemployment rate should decrease to 12 percent in 2015 and continue to fall to 11.5 percent in 2016 and 10.2 percent in Employment is forecast to increase by 1.4 percent in 2015 and during the following two years it should continue to grow, by 1.1 percent and 0.8 percent respectively. With the inflation rate forecast to be negative at -0.3 percent for 2015, the central bank assumes that prices would resume their growth in 2016 forecasting the inflation rate at 1.7 percent in 2016 and 2.4 percent in Real wages should grow 2.7 percent in 2015 to be followed by growth of 2.1 percent in 2016 and 1.8 percent in 2017.

5 A1 GENERAL PARTNER Vol. 21, No. 3 Monday, February , Sunday, February 22, Humble beginnings led to the paper s tenacity An inside look at the early days of Slovakia s English-language newspaper BY DANIEL J. STOLL Special to the Spectator I ARRIVED in Slovakia the morning of July 4, By evening I had shook hands with Slovak Republic President Michal Kováč, ate caviar and crackers with Vladimir Mečiar and exchanged small talk with U.S. Ambassador Theodore Russell. A non-profit organization, the Foundation for a Civil Society, had opened an office in Bratislava and was looking for people with knowledge of Slovakia. I had spent time in Slovakia as an English teacher in 1993, a witness to the creation of a new country, new currency, and the emergence of Slovak as an identity in Europe. Not many Americans could point out Slovakia on a map or had even heard of it. Prague yes. Slovakia? Slovenia, Yugoslavia, Soviet Russia, whatever. Founded by Wendy Luers, a human rights activist and wife of former U.S. Ambassador to Czechoslovakia ( ) William Luers, the NGO based in Prague was looking to expand its operations in Slovakia and my past experience in the country was valued. At least I knew a few Slovak words and where the country was. I went straight to The Foundation s office in Old Town Bratislava and met Carrie Slease, the director. After helping set up a place for me to sleep, she said I should check out the U.S. Embassy Independence Day party at the Hotel Bôrik. I took a tram up windy streets past the dirty brown Bratislava Castle, under the soaring WW II monument Slavín, to a white concrete hotel with a view towards the West, the Danube River and Austria beyond. I arrived at the same time as Mečiar and we walked in together. Mečiar had an American and Slovak flag sticking out of his suit jacket pocket. We both went straight to an elaborate table of food and tried the Caspian Sea caviar. When Kováč came a few minutes later and shook everyone s hand, I watched Mečiar quietly exit. At the time I had no idea I had just met the President and the future Prime Minister. I also couldn t have known that their political feud would shape the fate of The Slovak Spectator. 100 days to The Rock That the newspaper is celebrating 20 years of publishing where others have stopped The Prague Post, Warsaw Voice, Budapest Sun is due to the DNA that was infused into the newspaper s soul tenacity. I suppose The Slovak Spectator existed after its first 100 days because of the 100 days that preceded its launch. Founders Richard Lewis, Rick Zednik and I would never have believed we could publish an English-language newspaper had it not been for our experience putting together one issue of The Slovak Mirror in October Richard, Rick, and I met for the first time in August 1994 at the Foundation s headquarters on Kapitulská Street, a crumbling cobblestone street under the castle but cut off by a motorway that acted like a moat between the old town and those in power, and down the street from St Michael s cathedral, where brown hooded monks would walk below our office window before vespers. I was helping Carrie prepare a grant proposal for USAID to help provide schools across Slovakia with access to Englishlanguage teachers and books. Richard had been in Slovakia already a year as an English teacher in the small town of Spišské Vlachy near the sprawling Spiš castle, the largest castle ruin in Central Europe, with dreams of becoming a foreign correspondent. Richard and Carrie had gone to Duke University together and he was in the office that night borrowing the computer to write a story on the Spiš region s Roma population that he hoped to sell to an American publication. Rick swung by Kapitulská that evening to gain contacts for his new role in Bratislava to be the stringer for The Prague Post, a weekly newspaper founded in Prague in 1991 with Editor-in-Chief Alan Levy, the legendary International Herald Tribune reporter who had witnessed the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, and whose book A Rowboat to Prague, inspired thousands of young Americans to flock to that city in the 1990s. We had an easy chemistry together and we enjoyed the quick friendships with other American and British expatriates English teachers, diplomats, consultants in one of the then Big 6 accounting firms, bankers, investors, adventurous foreigners and other travellers who bewilderingly found themselves in Europe s youngest democracy. Slovakia became its own state on January 1, See START pg A7 Timeline of The Slovak Spectator March 1, 1995 The debut issue of The Slovak Spectator hits newsstands across Slovakia. July 1996 The first Spectacular Slovakia travel guide is published. September 1998 The Slovak Spectator becomes a weekly and launches its website, (now October 1999 The first issue of Real Estate and Construction Guide is published. See TIME pg A6 The Spectator, a lifelong affair The Slovak Spectator at 20: a long strange trip continues Now married to the EU, Slovakia still flirts with Russia An American finds a home in faraway Spišské Vlachy More independent thought and self-confidence for Slovakia The struggle continues THE COUNTRY we cover today is quite different from the Slovakia of 1995, when this newspaper was published for the first time. But can we call it Westernised? Well, it does have professional election campaigns and shopping malls. It does have the highest production of cars per capita, but ever more of its citizens are losing trust in its judiciary. Public awareness of the degree of corruption is on the rise. Slovakia is still young, but hopefully less naive than it was 20 years ago. At the same time, many of the stories we write about this country are not that different than they were back then. The excluded communities, the flawed public tenders, the populist politicians, the lagging schools and universities, privatisation issues and their legacy. The stories we tell about Slovakia are about a struggle to find respect for otherness, for transparency and for decency in administering public affairs. The Slovak Spectator contributes to these efforts by writing truthfully about pressing issues just as we have done in the past. By Michaela Terenzani, Editor-In-Chief Past, present, future ANNIVERSARIES are a time to reminisce and celebrate. In this special 20th anniversary supplement we are grateful to have articles from editors in chief who have run our editorial room for some two decades as well as memories from co-founder Daniel Stoll from this publication s earliest days. There is also a collection of short opinion pieces from those who have worked with us and now play important role in society. The supplement also includes contributions from companies who have cooperated with us over the long term. Special thanks to Noer, who is the general partner for our 20th anniversary. We hope that you, our readers, enjoy this trip down memory lane. We look forward to continuing the mission of our predecessors and take seriously our responsibility to bring unbiased information about Slovakia to the international community. Ján Pallo, Publisher

6 A The Spectator, a lifelong affair BY BEATA BALOGOVÁ Special to the Spectator NEWSPAPERS are forming their authors just as profoundly as journalists are shaping the media they work for.this relationship far transcends limits of working contracts, number of published stories and the years spent in a newsroom. Newspapers are like humans in some ways: in early stages of their lives they seek their voice and test their strength. They gradually learn how loud or how soft that voice needs to be in order to deliver messages to help their readers to interpret the world, or if managed by the wrong people, to misinterpret it. And sometimes newspapers are founded by the wrong people for the wrong reasons. Since the quality of journalism so much intertwines with human character, the newspapers are just as honest, straightforward or fair as the people who are making the paper. If the pursuit to get people s attention fails to develop into something much larger than stories of the individuals involved, the paper usually sinks into oblivion. ADVERTISEMENT Sig Gissler, the administrator of Pulitzer Prizes, delivering his speech in Bratislava. The past two decades suggest that The Slovak Spectator was founded at the right time for the right reasons: to search for the closest thing possible to the truth during the years of Slovakia coming of age as a democratic country. The journey of the newspaper founded by four Americans Eric Koomen, Richard Lewis, Dan Stoll and Rick Zednik in 1995, has far outgrown the original ambitions to help Englishspeaking expats survive in Slovakia. In the retrospective of 20 years, the newspaper has helped groom journalists and media professionals who later went on to make their mark JOIN THE FASTEST! MAGIO MOBILE TELEVISION FOR 3 MONTHS FREE WITH THE HAPPY TARIFF THE FASTEST 4G NETWORK Valid for new 24 month contract with purchase of special offer mobile phone with Happy XS tariff and higher. SP015039/001 outside this publishing house or even the country. The Slovak Spectator has made a contribution that surpasses the regular routine of putting out a paper and feeding a website. It has formed journalists who learned how to tell stories in a fashion built on the best journalistic traditions. Teaching the craft Confronted with aches of the theory-driven journalism education in Slovakia, The Slovak Spectator took on board journalism students, trained them and sent them to the field to experience journalism on their own skin. After finding a sympathetic ear at Comenius University s department of journalism, the newspaper even ran its own journalism class and opened it up for students from other journalism schools as well. Graduates of the Spectator class then took jobs with the best media outlets in Slovakia. Today, some are working for the broadsheet Sme daily, the public radio and even for the Spectator itself. For a paper with a limited staff and resources, this is quite an achievement. Yet, efforts of the Spectator to contribute to the media discourse in Slovakia are far from ending there. If not for The Slovak Spectator, a number of prestigious Pulitzer winning journalists and the administrator of this respected prize may not have found their way to Slovakia very easily, if making it to this small central European country at all. With the help of the partners of the Best Media Traditions programme, the newspaper brought in accomplished journalists who actually have authentically lived what many schools only preach. They not only wrote that big story that brought them acclaim in America but Photo: Jana Liptáková also have helped to keep the faith in the good old journalistic principles alive and explained why the fundamentals of journalism, including the ability of talking to people, should not change along with technology. Joshua Friedman, Tim Weiner, Abigail Goldman and Walt Bogdanich shared much more than just phrases about how important the media s watchdog role is. Their narratives clearly delivered the message that along with being fair, truthful and accurate it is equally important to remain deeply human even in times when such humanity is lacking. The Columbia connection Students of the one of the most prestigious journalism schools of the world, the Columbia University s school of journalism, felt lucky if they made it to classes of Sig Gissler, the now retired administrator of the Pulitzer Prices. Yet, the Slovak Spectator made it possible for students in Slovakia to experience the Columbia atmosphere for at least a couple hours without having to pay any hefty tuition fee. Sig Gissler not only spoke to them but even commented on their work and advised them how to get the story right in all of its important details. Tell the story clearly and use the human angle whenever possible to make the piece come alive for the reader, Gissler told the young journalists. He sent them to the streets and asked them to talk to strangers because it helps you spread the journalism net wide. You discover story ideas, you encounter potential sources and you stay in tune withyourcommunity.idofear that too many journalists walk around with their eyes on their smart phones, thus missing Since the quality of journalism so much intertwines with human character, the newspapers are just as honest, straightforward or fair as the people who are making the paper. the world as it passes by. And most of them did talk to strangers and brought back stories that they will remember much longer than notes copied from an outdated textbook onto the whiteboard. Getting personal At the time I joined The Slovak Spectator as its editorin-chief in 2003, the size of the editorial room was three times the number of reporters I left behind in January 2015 when I moved on to lead the Sme daily. It did not happen because the publisher Ján Pallo and I felt we could do the paper with very few people. It was our response to the question: Do we want The Slovak Spectator to continue despite all the limitations imposed on us by the development of the print market or do we give up and say it is no longer possible? Over the past six years we kept saying yes to the life of the paper, and with the support of Petit Press CEO Alexej Fulmek, we somehow managed year after year to keep it vibrant without compromising the content. After the departure of Tom Nicholson in 2007, we were no longer able to do large-scale investigative stories but we remained committed to those grand old principles of journalism. Neither Fulmek, nor Pallo have ever questioned that we need to do it right and keep to the rules even if some other media outlets were crossing the red line in order to lure advertisers to survive. The year of 2014 was especially trying and it did reopen the difficult question: are we able to carry the paper and the tradition further without reducing it to the point where readers will no longer find those crucial pieces to create their own understanding of Slovakia. The answer was again a resounding yes and I do genuinely wish and believe that it will remain so for many more years. Beata Balogová is the editorin-chief of the Sme daily.

7 A3 The Slovak Spectator at 20: a long strange trip continues Principled ownership is the only recipe for journalistic freedom BY TOM NICHOLSON Special to the Spectator LOOKING back, September 1995 probably wasn t the most auspicious time to take a job in Slovakia. The Vladimír Mečiar government had just introduced new work permit requirements for foreigners, which involved a lot of police documents and medical tests and carrying around embarrassing samples of waste. But no one including the police seemed sure of exactly how the process should work, resulting in my lecturing for the first three months of my Žilina university job as an unpaid volunteer until my permit was finally issued. Perhaps the police were distracted. After all, in August 1995 the son of the Slovak president had been allegedly kidnapped to Austria by the secret service and police SWAT team officers, so there was an investigation to be suppressed and plenty of witnesses to be intimidated. There was also the explosion of organised crime under Mečiar, which wasn t to be suppressed so much as timidly ignored and then laboriously cleaned up after. So it s fair to say that Slovakia had other fish to fry and took little notice of me or any other English teacher in the mid-1990s. I knew equally little about Slovakia, except for the tiny corner of the country represented by my school and friends and a few Žilina running routes and bars. I lived, uncertain of the wisdom of my emigration, on a tiny Englishspeakingisland, surroundedby an intimidating sea of Slovakness an alien language, unpleasant bureaucrats, an impenetrable culture and, always, dark tales of kidnapping and murder and state capture passedonbyslovakfriends. But knowing nothing about your host country becomes oppressive, and as time passed I started to take a closer interest in these morbid tales. Coming from a sleepy, nerdy democracy like Canada, where society works and the law is widely respected, it took me a long time even to believe, far less to understand how things workedinslovakia. How government ministers could simply grab the best public assets for themselves and their friends, paying an Protests over the Gorilla scandal drew thousands into Slovakia s squares. average of 10 percent of their market worth. How a secret service and a police leadership could consort with gangsters, bartering freedom from prosecution in return for assistance with sordid tasks that even Mečiar s henchmen refused to perform. How a ruling coalition could sabotage the country s chance of Western integration, flirt with Yeltsin s Russian kleptocracy, and oppress democratic opposition at home. And how all of this could happen without voters filling thestreetsinprotest. JoiningtheSpectator I learned much of what I needed to know from The Slovak Spectator, a schizophrenic bi-weekly torn between reporting the full truth of Mečiar s excesses, and pulling its punches in order to attract at least some advertising. In early 1997 they announced they were looking for freelancers, and without any great seriousness since I was destined to be a Great Writer, after all, not a hack Iapplied.Andindoingso discovered the greatest professionofthemall. What an odd bunch they were. Four Americans in their mid-20s, serious as only young men can be when starting their first company. Two of them strove mightily to keep the paper afloat while the other two laboured to understand the country whose turmoil they chronicled. They were supported by a Slovak deputy editor with waist-length red hair, a penchant for drinking beer at work, and a loathing of Mečiar that frequently poisoned his pen. By a blue-eyed, blonde sales executive with a practiced knack for reeling in clients. By a quietly anguished 16- year-old with formidable journalism skills and a mother in jail. By a rotating cast of freelancers, some of whom wrote humblingly well, and others who drew groans of ennui from their weary editors. By a committee of diplomatic spouses who swooped in on print day to gently point out themostegregiouserrors. How often I wished, in those early months, that I knew more about journalism, or that there was a benign Lowell Bergman character to at least teach me the ropes. I made egregious mistakes, like dismissing an Up With People concert as cultural onanism, and bitterly regretted the youthful arrogance it betrayed. I constantly wished I spoke the language better, to be more sure of my quotes; or that I knew the country better, to have a surer sense of context. I wasoftenashamed. But that shame was a constant lash to improve. And as a first experience in journalism, the Spectator was an awesome apprenticeship. There was so much going on in Slovakia bizarre, wrong-headed, evil and faintly comic at the same time that you didn t dream of embellishing it. You factchecked because you yourself couldn t quite believe you had the facts right. There were no puff pieces, no corporate PR posing as news, because the business community was largely Mečiar-positive, and regarded us with deep suspicion. We worked with the paper s owners, and debated editorial decisions freely. No stories were spiked: on the contrary, after Mečiar thwarted a referendum on NATO membership in 1998, the paper toughened its criticism through editorials that put us on the black list of media the government refused to communicatewith. LeavingtheSpectator Apart from a brief stint back in Canada in , I spent a decade with the Spectator, even (improbably) serving as publisher. The paper had an ownership that was a journalist s dream two of the original American founders stayed on, joined by former war reporter Alexej Fulmek, head of the Petit Press publisher. The only limitations on what stories we covered and how we told them lay in the stuff between our ears. I know how many journalists claim the same, but eight years after leaving the Spectator, I realise how good wehadit. I know, for example, that had I remained at the Spectator, the Gorilla file would have been reported years before it actually appeared in the Slovak press. We would have been sued, and worse ignored by the rest of the Slovak media establishment. But we would have written the story, and not hidden the file in a safe until its publication on the internet ADVERTISEMENT made it impossible to ignore. Maybe that would have nixed the chance of even a brief interlude from Róbert Fico s neooligarch reign but it would have been stand-up journalism. I left the Spectator in 2007 to take a job doing investigative journalism at Sme, the most stand-up Slovak broadsheet, followed in 2010 by a stint at the Trend weekly. It was a natural progression, just as it was for many Spectator journalists who went on to write for AP, the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times and others. It was time to submit one s craft to the critical eyes of a larger and far more engaged and informed audience. But it was also a venture into a murkier world of inscrutable editorial decisions, of journalism with a political agenda beyond a reporter s conscience. Slovakmediaenvironment These days, with advertising in deep decline, ownership and flak are the only of media critic Noam Chomsky s five filters still shaping how the Slovak media cover stories. And what a dispiriting, aggressive group these owners are! Oligarchs dominate, from the mercurial Ivan Kmotrík at the TA3 news channel, to Slovakia s richest man, Andrej Babiš at the Hospodárske Noviny business daily. The J&T financial group, with roots in Mečiar-era crony privatization, controls the JOJ TV station, while their counterparts at Penta own the Trend business weekly, the Pluska tabloid The only limitations on what stories we covered and how we told them lay in the stuff between our ears. weekly and daily, the news portal aktualne.sk, as well as a minority stake in Petit Press, which publishes the Sme daily and The Slovak Spectator. The largest tabloid, Nový Čas, is nominally still independent, but publisher Peter Mertus departed last December to head Penta s media operations. The Pravda daily, meanwhile, was marketed by oligarch Jozef Brhel, close to Prime Minister RóbertFico ssmerparty. Even the start-up Projekt N, led by Sme defectors, is controlled by the Eset international software company, while the small-market weekly Týžden has allegedly been financed by Penta since 2009, accordingtosourcesatpenta. I understand how tired people must be of journalists grousing about their lot. Of laments for the golden era, and imprecations to consider again how important vibrant journalism is for a healthy democracy. The world is changing, and we must all find our places in it. In that changed world, there are a few things that provide hope. Alexej Fulmek is oneofthem. SeeTRIPpgA6 SP015029/015

8 A Now married to the EU, Slovakia still flirts with Russia BY RICK ZEDNÍK Special to the Spectator ADVERTISEMENT Former prime minister Vladimír Mečiar with Babky Demokratky. START-UP companies always find achieving success to be a struggle. Even more so when that company is an independent newspaper in a country with no tradition of free enterprise or free press. When my partners and I published the first issue of The Slovak Spectator in March 1995, we hoped we would still be publishing in March Aside from a new venture s normal concerns, the political and economic environment meant that sticking around for even 12 months was far from certain. The state of affairs in Slovakia at that time was dark. The government of Vladimír Mečiar was actively wooing Russian security cooperation and investment. This was in stark contradiction to the government s public rhetoric of seeking integration with European and trans-atlantic structures. On June 27, 1995, Slovakia submitted its formal application to join the European Union. The outlook should have been rosy. But incredibly, just two months later, the adult son of then-president Michal Kováč was abducted, beaten, forced to drink whisky, stuffed into a car, smuggled across the border, and dumped in front of an Austrian police station. It was widely speculated that Slovakia s secret police were involved in an effort to discredit the president, who was in an ongoing dispute with Mečiar. There was no serious investigation into who committed the act. Then a supposed witness was killed when his car suddenly exploded while turning a bend in Bratislava. Again, no serious investigation. The intimidation tactics extended even to our little newspaper. Our balanced coverage of events in the country was perceived by the government as a threat because our audience of 5,000 readers included western diplomats and journalists watching Slovakia. Many of the most loyal readers of the government s mouthpiece newspaper, Slovenská Republika, were said to be female Mečiar supporters over 70 who loved the prime minister for his quick lawyerly mind, his strong advocacy of an independent Slovakia, and his rugged good looks. These were the Babky Demokratky. My grandmother was one of them. When watching the prime minister on television, she would frequently say, My god. He s a looker. So you can imagine my grandmother s dilemma when Slovenská Republika ran a big article about The Slovak Spectator titled, Against the Government Coalition. They were challenging my Babka Demokratka to choose between her grandson and her SP015026/007 hero! But more than familial allegiances were tested. It was one of many tactics intended to discredit any independent voices. Where Slovakia s application to join the EU was widely welcomed in capitals from Berlin to Brussels and Washington, and should have been cause for encouragement, instead, events on the ground raised serious concerns. Slovakia was hit with a diplomatic double whammy. On October 25, 1995, the EU issuedademarche.andtwodays later, in a show of support, the US also issued a demarche. Their message was clear: Even though Slovakia was not big, rich or powerful, western alliances were willing to give it a shot. But if Slovakia were to join the EU or NATO, its leadership had to conform to certain norms. Feeling spurned, however, its leadership did the opposite. Mečiar tied Slovakia s future ever more to that of Russia, with deals on energy and defence. As a result, the fear that Slovakia would be excluded when its neighbours would soon join the EU and NATO became palpable inside and outside the country. And this contributed to the vicious cycle, with foreign investors unwilling to risk capital on a country with such uncertain prospects. At that moment, many Slovaks dream of EU membership and its benefits greater freedoms to study and work abroad, foreign direct investment to bring jobs, opportunities to trade more easily across borders, and structural funds for improved infrastructure was in serious jeopardy. Then, a remarkable thing happened. The diplomatic and economic pressure mobilised a segment of the population. Young people, unhappy with their prospective future, organised to choose the forces they wanted in power. In September 1998, Mečiar s party came less than 1 percent ahead of the main opposition party. When Mečiar couldn t form a government, a new coalition came to power. The government of Mikuláš Dzurinda stated its unequivocal intent to join the EU and NATO. It had to watch with regret when six months later its neighbours the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary joined NATO together. Slovakia s first invitation to an exclusive club came in December 2000, when the country joined the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development, the global group of wealthy nations. The government could point to tangible results. But perhaps the best news for the government s chances for a second term came just months before the 2002 general election. It had nothing to do with politics, and it happened in Sweden. For the first time ever, Slovakia won the world championship in its national sport of ice hockey. Slovaks felt like winners. The Dzurinda government was rewarded with re-election. Over the next two years, two major car manufacturers, Peugeot-Citroën and Kia, announced plans to invest 1.7 billion and create 5,800 jobs in the country. They did so because by this time, EU membership was becoming inevitable. In March 2004, Slovakia was one of seven countries to join NATO. Barely a month later, it was one of 10 countries to be celebrated in Brussels as new EU members. Slovakia had crossed the finishing line of accession at the same time as its neighbours. But the longer race was not over. In December 2007, Slovakia joined the so-called Schengen zone of border-free travel. A year after that, on January 1, 2009, Slovakia became just the second postcommunist country, after Slovenia, to adopt the euro as its currency. Six years later, the Czech Republic, Poland, and Hungary have still not adopted the currency and remain unlikely to do so for years to come. Many promises of EU membership have been fulfilled. Unemployment dropped. Inflation stabilised. Per capita GNP rose at a higher rate than it had been rising previously. And Slovakia be- Things can change. It takes people assuming control of their fate. And it can be done through diplomacy and negotiation. came one of the world s most internationally integrated economies. But energy security remains a major concern. A legacy that none of Slovakia s leaders has been able to alter is the fact that 100 percent of the country s gas comes from Russia. This dependency has caused current Prime Minister Robert Fico to be more cautious than most of his EU counterparts on sanctioning Russia for its involvement in Ukraine. Will that mean Slovakia is soft on Russia when it assumes the rotating presidency of the EU on July 1, 2016? A general election in Slovakia in March next year will leave much uncertain until the eve of the presidency. Slovakia s story is one of success. But as The Slovak Spectator celebrates its 20th anniversary this month and I look back, the country s success was far from assured two decades ago. A small country of modest means, Slovakia was an underdog. It had to overcome bad management and poor decisions, and carefully choose its allies. As long as Russia stumbled through the late 1990s and the 2000s, that choice was not difficult. But with Russia flexing its muscles, and Slovakia in a position of having more to lose, the choices may become more difficult. What are the lessons? Things can change. It takes people assuming control of their fate. And it can be done with diplomacy and negotiation. Through hard work, ideas that seem fanciful can become reality. Only in our wildest dreams did my co-founders of The Slovak Spectator imagine we might one day see a celebration of the paper s 20th anniversary. I m so pleased that this is exactly what we are celebrating this month in Bratislava. Rick Zedník was a co-founder of The Slovak Spectator. He is now CEO of EurActiv.com, the EU policy news network, in Brussels, and he is the author of A Country Lost, Then Found: Discovering My Father s Slovakia.

9 A5 An American finds a home in faraway Spišské Vlachy BY RICHARD LEWIS Special to the Spectator MY FIRST real introduction to Slovakia the moment when I realised I was going to be here awhile was when a portly, middle-aged man and his daughter with dyed-blonde hair and overdone make-up picked me up in their dusty, well-travelled car. That was late August 1993, and I had arrived a few days earlier, in the second wave of teachers recruited by the wellintentioned but misnamed outfit Education for Democracy. The three-day, incountry orientation was more of a coddling exercise expatriates hanging out with expatriates, mostly and so when I squeezed myself in the back of the father-daughter vehicle somewhere in downtown Bratislava, I knew there was no turning back. I vaguely knew where I was going, and really little more. The place was Spišské Vlachy, I had been told in a letter I received one spring day while working in a congressional office in Washington, DC. I would live with a family. And, I would teach English at some school there for one year. That was all I knew. I did not know the language. I did not have any family ties or ancestral roots. I did not have any real reason to have chosen Slovakia, other than the unremarkable fact thatispokeenglishandwasat the ripe young age to be pining for an adventure. I did buy a map and I studied it long and hard before I left America. As I pored over it, I wondered about my destination. Spišské Vlachy seemed to be a dot in the hills, and definitely a long way from any city I had ever heard of. After a five-hour journey in the car marked exclusively by awkward silence (I spoke no Slovak; they spoke no English), we arrived in Spišské Vlachy and pulled up to a wellappointed, two-storey house, located nearly on the outskirts of town. Within moments, a bespectacled, beaming woman burst out the front door and greeted me, saying Reetchard! She embraced me, kissed me once on each cheek and led me by the arm into the home. Inside, she presented me with slippers, and motioned me into a spotless room furnished with a dining table, some glass cabinets with fine china and glassware and a white, furry throw rug that I later learned was the hide of the family dog. There I was feted like a king, served meat and potatoes and given vodka in a thimble-shaped glass that was Richard Lewis with Spišské Vlachy in the background. never allowed to go completely empty. All the while, my Slovak mother buzzed around me serving more meat here, another helping of potatoes there, a splash of vodka for good measure attending to me so intently that I began to feel embarrassed. And, so my first evening ended under the roof of the Repašská rodina, my Slovak family, swaddled in love and hospitality, for someone they barely knew. My first day at Spišské Vlachy s cirkevná základná škola (elementary school) began with all eyes children and teachers fixed on me. I was the lone foreigner, the curiosity who had appeared to teach 6th-8th graders at a Catholic school in this village of 3,500 people. My first day, the children in each of my classes stood at attention next to their desks when I entered the classroom. I didn t know how to react. Then, one by one, they marched forward and asked me for my autograph. If the teachers were similarly awed, they didn t show it. But they did ask a lot of questions as I learned to properly sip so-called Turecká káva (Turkish coffee) in the narrow room that functioned as the teachers lounge. Politics. Race relations. Popular culture. Sports. The regular faculty meetings were convivial affairs, less about school business than opportunities to celebrate birthdays, meniny (name days), milestones or to swap gossip, in school or heard around town. Frequently, we sang: Spiš dialect tunes, such as Hej Macejko or, on birthdays, a song that I think was a fusion of Spiš and Russian, Živio, živio, živio mnoga leta, mnoga leta... In the evenings, I taught two adult classes, one for beginners and one for advanced speakers. One student in my advanced class, Ondrej Záhorňadský, regularly invited me to join him for čapované pivo (draft beer) at one of several local krčmy, a ploy, I knew, to squeeze me for extra English-language practice. Naturally, I was thrilled to oblige him. Ondrej was from Margecany, a village just down the train line, on the waytokošice.onetime,when I visited him in his hometown, he told me a secret: The public phone at the train station was broken, and you could make calls for free. I dialed the United States, and the call sailed through. I couldn t believe my luck: I had found the Magic Phone of Margecany. For a few weeks, the orange phone at the train station was my new best friend, a lifeline for my homesick soul to reach out and touch family and friends far away. Another lifeline came from a Repašský son, Pavol, and his wife, Klaudia, who lived next door. They frequently came over for dinner, and Klaudia would patiently suture my butchered Slovak, while her young daughters would play games with me that further aided my learning the language. When I felt particularly unmoored, they d invite me over to their home, and I would vegetate watching cartoons in English. Two of the Repašský brothers, Pavol and Marián, were outdoors enthusiasts, and one of their passions was rock climbing. So, barely a week after I had arrived, Pavol invited me to do some climbing at a nearby outcrop called Dreveník. I had no idea what I was in for, but I did know one thing: I had a healthy fear of heights. So, here I was on an early fall morning, getting Photo: Archive of Richard Lewis roped in and staring straight up a 70-foot stone face, with Pavol beckoning me to get moving. Fear swallowed, I began my ascent. Many dodgy steps later, I reached the top, and boy, what a view! Spišský hrad (Spiš Castle) toward one horizon, the foothills to the Tatry at another, and gently rolling, green hills all around. Thank you, Pavol. Perhaps that steeled my confidence enough to climb another rock face Gerlachovský štít (peak), the mother of all Tatry the next summer, with my good pal from Bardejov, Robbie Morrison. But that s another story. What is a story for now is one of the unique cultural rites of passage that I was able ADVERTISEMENT to witness, the zabíjačka. This came about thanks to a fellow teacher, Ján Furman, who was one of the few younger teachers (and males) at the school. So, on a raw morning in February, I disembarked from perhaps the most ordinary train I had ridden, in darkness, squinting for signs of his hamlet as the pencil-thin light of the train faded into the pre-dawn. The zabíjačka was truly an occasion I will never forget. Yes, it is a pig killing. Yes, it is bloody, brutal, gory. I have the pictures to prove it. But, no, it is not wanton, it is not cruel, and it is not gratuitous, at least in my book. That pig had been bred, cared for, nurtured, to be Ján s family s meat supply for the year. They had raised it with attention and treated it with respect. I witnessed (and took part in, as I was one of four people involved) the whole affair, from the pistol that shot a steel bolt to the pig s forehead to stun it, to the shaving of the hair, to the cutting of the body parts, to the threading of the entrails for sausage. We worked hard, and we worked solemnly, for hours, until, when it was well into evening, and we had finished, we paid our respects with a formal dinner that included some of the tastiest parts of the animal. Experiences during that year memories gained from that year are seared in my memory, nostalgic fragments that, together, create a richly illustrative mosaic in my mind. I lived four more years in Slovakia a transcendent time I did not have any real reason to have chosen Slovakia, other than the unremarkable fact that I spoke English and was at the ripe young age to be pining for an adventure. that revolved largely around co-founding The Slovak Spectator. Sometimes, I wonder whether I would ve left Slovakia after that first year, like nearly everyone else in that teaching programme, and missed that once-in-a-lifetime opportunity with the Spectator if it hadn t been for Spišské Vlachy, for the Repašskýs, for the Spiš region that I briefly called home. The last time I visited Slovakia was in 2005, for the 10th anniversary of the Spectator s beginning. I tacked on a few extra days to that trip, and ever the prodigal son, made my way east, to Spišské Vlachy. The visit was fulfilling, but too brief. Pani Repašská dropped me off at the train station. With her fingers, she etched a sign of the cross on my forehead. Môj zlatý, she said, this will always be home for you. Richard Lewis is a co-founder and former editor-in-chief of The Slovak Spectator. The Slovak Spectator, thank you for working with us all these years. Happy 20 th Anniversary! Leaders For What s Next SP015003/002

10 A More independent thought and self-confidence for Slovakia Did you expect Slovakia to be where it is today when you founded the paper 20 years ago? Erik Koomen, one of TSS co-founders When we founded The Slovak Spectator we recognized we may not stay in Slovakia forever. Therefore our primary commitment was to ensure that the Spectator would continue on long after our departure. I am proud that this goal was accomplished, and done so with predominantly Slovak staff and management. This supports my experience with the high quality of the Slovak workforce which has a lot to do with Slovakia s success since its founding. The Slovak Spectator has been covering Slovakia for 20 years. During that time, the country has been through tremendous changes, but there still remains room for improvement. Which one of the challenges that Slovakia faces today do you consider of major importance from your perspective? ADVERTISEMENT Alexej Fulmek, head of the Petit Press publishing house Every community, in every corner of the world, has plenty of challenges. At this time, in this geographical location and this country, the biggest challenge is to maintain its geopolitical affiliation with democracies of a western-european type. When it comes to domestic policy, we are facing crucial reforms in health care, but especially reform of the education system. Education is the foundation of every modern and successful society. Coping with changing demographics and an ageing population is yet another challenge. Last but not least, we are still waiting for political representation which would stop telling people that the state or someone else will take care of them, but rather initiates citizens trust and self-confidence instead. Businesspeople are not the enemies of employees, but rather their allies. Juraj Draxler, Minister of Education, former Spectator writer From my perspective, the most important challenge for Slovakia is obviously the education system. We have some great teachers, some great schools and great scientists and on average we do relatively well, whether you look at PISA rankings or other comparatives. We are good in the middle. But we need to work really hard to stop leaving some behind because of their socio-economic background, which often translates into poor school performance. And we also need to provide much better incentives and possibilities for academic achievement for the outstanding ones. NEW DIMENSION OF KNOWLEDGE ENERGOLAND MOCHOVCE STATE OF THE ART ENERGY INFOCENTRE INTERACTIVE SECTIONS 33, 3D CINEMA, INTERACTIVE FLOOR, TOUCH APPLICATIONS AND GAMES, TRIP TO THE HISTORY ON ELECTRICAL SUPERBIKE, AUGMENTED REALITY energoland.sk SP015037/002 Lukáš Fila, head of the N Press publishing house, former Spectator writer Why aren t there more whistle blowers that report corruption and maladministration? Why do new doctors adopt all the bad habits of their predecessors and why are efforts to improve the healthcare sector so slow? Why are funds allocated for projects like Roma integration so often blocked by insane bureaucracy and then spent on nonsense? Partly because there is still too little independent thought in Slovakia. It seems obvious that the government will not be able to solve most of today s challenges. It s up to the people that deal with the challenges on a daily basis. Once more judges, teachers and doctors learn not only to think and act for themselves, but to demand that they be given the freedom to do so, there is a great chance for improvement. How do we get there? Education is part of the answer critical thought and free debate need to get more attention in schools. We need to continue to learn from the outside world. The institutional and legal framework demanded by the EU has helped some but simply being able to travel and learn by example is doing a great deal. And then there are independent serious media, like The Slovak Spectator. Let s hope Slovakia is lucky enough for it to continue to thrive and open the minds of those that will shape Slovakia s future. Miroslav Beblavý, MP and member of Sieť party, former Spectator writer The biggest challenge facing Slovakia is how to deal with being a normal country. In the past, Slovaks have shown tremendous dynamism and ability to sacrifice for a better future for themselves and their children. As a result, we have become a fairly normal European country, though poorer, more corrupt and more regionally imbalanced than European averages. Those problems do not lend themselves to simple solutions or heroic sacrifices. There are also no easy solutions to copy from abroad in health care, education or politics. We have to find our own way, based on 25 years of learning. What we need to achieve is a new generation of leaders that are both resolute and patient, pragmatic but determined to deliver change, knowledgeable about the world but comfortable in the most remote village of our country. I would not be in politics if I did not believe we can do it. TIME: The story continues December 1999 The first issue of Book of Lists is published. February 2000 The first issue of Career and Employment Guide is published. February 2001 The first issue of Investment Advisory Guide is published. May 2001 The Rock, s.r.o. becomes part of the German-Slovak publishing house Petit Press, a.s. as it takes over a 75 percent share of the company. November 2011 The Slovak Spectator, in cooperation with the Petit Academy, the Tatra Banka Foundation and Comenius University, launches the Best Media Traditions programme to bring a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist to speak every year before the Slovak public. April 2012 The Slovak Spectator is awarded the Via Bona prize for Socially Responsible Market Impact, in particular for its education project Get Trained and Then Get Published. April 2014 The Slovak Spectator is awarded the Via Bona Main Award for a Responsible Small or Medium-Sized Enterprise, for its CSR programmes. September 2014 Travel guide Spectacular Slovakia is published for the first time in a 300-page book format with a new modern design. January 2015 The Slovak Spectator launched its new website. TRIP: Change is inevitable Continued from pg A3 Having managed with Slovak owner Peter Vajda to fight off Penta s 2014 acquisition bid, and forcing them into minority ownership of Sme and The Slovak Spectator, Fulmek and Vajda continue to wage a battle that is probably ultimately doomed, and has been fought at an enormous loss to Sme s journalistic corps. But that has proven enough to hold the pass, for now. I ve known Alexej since 2000, when his Petit Press first bought a stake in the Spectator. He has immense faith in his own talents and an equal disdain for numskulls. He runs the largest publishing house in the country as a meritocracy with himself astride it, a place where talent redeems but disloyalty disqualifies. He was the one who in 2012 published my book on the Gorilla scandal for all that he grieved for his friends on the The Slovak Spectator received one of the main Via Bona awards in Photo: Courtesy of Pontis Foundation political right wing that it hurt and it was he who defended it against multiple lawsuits filed by Penta and others. It was Alexej who fended off Penta s attempt to take over Sme, despite the departure of more than 50 Sme journalists to found Projekt N. He staked his career and reputation on it, gifting Sme years of life as the Penta vultures circled. And it is because of his belief in committed journalism that The Slovak Spectator has survived its 20th anniversary. Coda Those early Spectator years are gone, and their stirring enthusiasm too. Mečiar was defeated, Slovakia joined the EU and NATO but without another fort to capture, it s as if the vision of what an independent Slovakia could be has been lost. Much of this is due to Gorilla, not so much through what it revealed about how politics is really conducted, but because it has not resulted in any indictments, far less jail terms for traitorous politicians and oligarchs. A grave injustice unpunished is often more harmful than the original wrong itself. I doubt that the Spectator will survive another 20 years, or even that Sme will endure. But many of us who were there in the lean years will find a place wherever we can still tell the truth. I will, and so will my editor Dan Borský, who after I got beat up in January 1998 by assailants the police believed were secret service slung an arm around my shoulders, plunked a beer in front of me and turned up the radio as I blubbered. And then we got back to the work of reporting the news. Tom Nicholson works as a reporter and commentator at the Sme daily

11 A7 The team of The Slovak Spectator after 20 years Nataša Ďuričová and a monk in The TSS team in 1995: from left, bottom row: Danka Ledgerwood (Hašková), Simona Gould (Sedláková), Joanna Mišenková (daughter of Dalia Raymundo), Dano Borský, Tom Reynolds; middle row: David Keats, Sara Garcia; top row: Dan Stoll, Richard Lewis, Zuzana Pavlíková, Marián Hitka, Andrea Dudík (Lorinczová), Eric Koomen, Rick Zedník The TSS team joining volunteer activities in Ján Pallo, Publisher Michaela Terenzani, Editor-In-Chief Jana Liptáková, Managing Editor Radka Minarechová, Staff Writer & Project Manager Zuzana Vilikovská, Staff Writer Benjamin Cunningham, Senior Editor Tom Nicholson, Special Contributor Peter Adamovský, Freelancer Jozef Hámorský, Circulation Manager & Sales Executive Roman Cuprik, Staff Writer Raub Murray, Copy Editor Beata Balogová, Special Contributor Erik Rédli, Freelancer Beata Fojtíková, Sales Executive The TSS team in 2010: from left,bottom row: Jana Liptáková, Beata Balogová, Ján Pallo, Zuzana Vilikovská; top row: Donald Spatz, Tatiana Štrauchová, Marta Fukasová, Michaela Terenzani, Roman Král, Martina Mišíková, Dáša Košútová, Beata Fojtíková, James Thomson START: Early days full of adrenaline Continued from pg A1 The three of us also shared dreams of becoming journalists. Rick had the most bylines and the education credentials, having graduated from Columbia s Graduate School of Journalism. Richard had a ravenous appetite for writing and a few years in Washington DC working as a press secretary for a congressman and the Saudi embassy. My experience lay at my college newspaper The Oswegonian as the sports editor and news reporter, a few college writing awards and an internship at a Rochester, New York TV station. We were hired by Slovak entrepreneur Dušan Polakovič to continue publishing his project, an English-language monthly called The Slovak Mirror. We worked in a tiny office on Hviezdoslovo Square, down the street from the Slovak National Theatre and the American Embassy.AsbadlyasIhadwantedtowriteand be a reporter, I drew the short straw and became the Business Manager, in charge of helping Dušan find advertising, build subscriptions and transfer the newspaper s electronic files to the printer. Rick and Richard became co-editors and encouraged me to write a few stories if I had time. Even though I wasn t an editor in name, I spent countless hours with Rick and Richard helping figure out story ideas and laying out the paper with Rick using Quark Express. This was going to be the fourth edition of The Slovak Mirror after Dušan had published three issues earlier that spring until his editor quit and he hired us. We had the pivotal Slovak election of 1994 to report on as well as the introduction of Slovakia s first fast food joint, not McDonald s, but Chicken Treat, which didn t last long. I wrote about Slovak-American Eugene Cernan, the last man to walk on the moon, who gave a guest lecture at Comenius University, as well as the Slovak national hockey team s quest to climb out of Group C and join the Czech Republic in Group A. The Slovaks were incensed by the International Ice Hockey Federation s decision to dump the Slovak team into the lowest group with the likes of Japan, Great Britain and France after the split up of Czechoslovakia while the Czechs were placed with the traditional hockey powers of Canada, the USA, Sweden, Finland and Russia. As Business Manager, I also saw first hand the revenues that could be made through advertising: 90,000 crowns or about $3,000 for a full-page ad! Considering Dušan offered the three of us $300 per month and had four pages of ads in our October issue, it wasn t hard to do the math and see how publishing could be good business. We put in ridiculously long hours writing, editing and laying the paper out. At the end of these long nights we would stumble into an underground pub and meet our friends for a brew or two, then do it again the next day and night. We were also busy promoting our efforts to the expat community and there was much excitement being generated with the help of the American Chamber of Commerce and its members, as well as the diplomatic community. October 6 we said the paper would be available. Except it wasn t. Delays with printing we were told by Dušan. It would be published on October 10. Except it wasn t. Dušan had the contacts with the advertisers, the printer and the distributors so we were dependent on his word. It was a bit surreal. He kept promising the paper would be printed the next day. We kept telling the expat community that the paper would be published the next day and it kept on not being true. Then Dušan did not pay us when he said he would and we lost contact with him. No paper, no pay, no idea what was going on. As the days grew shorter in October, our pride, our credibility, our belief in The Slovak Mirror, became damaged beyond repair. It was humbling. But we had felt the adrenaline of publishing. We had produced a newspaper together even though it didn t exist on actual paper yet. An idea started to germinate in each of us: Did we need Dušan to do this? Could we do this on our own? Beverly Douglas was the founder and president of the American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) in Slovakia and a huge supporter of our efforts to publish the newspaper. It s easy to see why from her business point of view that an Englishlanguage newspaper would signal to potential foreign investors that a vibrant foreign community existed. And the newspaper would provide critical reporting on business and politics in a language they could read. She was also our friend funny, foul-mouthed, generous, passionate. At a dinner she hosted at her apartment in a 11-storey tower in Dúbravka, a Bratislava suburb, Rick, Richard and I plus other expat friends debated the viability of going off on our own. As the evening drew to an end way past midnight, we were toasting Slivovica to our assured success. We just needed a business plan. We had the belief! Daniel J. Stoll is one of the co-founders of The Slovak Spectator. He lives in Jersey City, NJ with his wife Reni and son Mark (age 13). He works for Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey as director of communications at Rutgers Business School. Along with founder Eric Koomen, Daniel still maintains ownership in The Slovak Spectator along with Petit Press, the majority shareholder.

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13 QUOTE OF THE WEEK: WEB: Hard to limit hate talk Continued from pg 2 The police however do not prosecute authors of this extremist material so it is questionable how the police work, according to Róbert Mihály, a member of the initiative. Just open the Facebook, there are hundreds of such cases there, Mihály told The Slovak Spectator. Mihály was one of seven people detained by police during a March 14 march as he and others confronted a group commemorating the war time Slovak state, an ally of Nazi Germany. On the other hand, the power of police is limited because a large amount of clearly extremist content which could be people prosecuted for is placed on USA servers. Slovak legislation does not apply there therefore Slovak authorities struggle to deal with it, according to Nociar. The police refuse to describe their methods of fighting with extremism because of tactical reasons, police spokesperson Michal Slivka told The Slovak Spectator. Humor is better than jail sentences You scold us 364 days in a year so we decided to make fun of you today. Defence Minister Martin Glváč s comment during a fake April 1 press conference after he presented a piece of camouflaged chicken he claimed was found in the ministry s food supplies. Forms of extremism have moved to the internet. Instead of repression Nociar proposes the public to fight with extremism using the humor or rational arguments making it less attractive for people. The Slovak society however often does not recognise the extremism as a problem. This affects also police when dealing with such cases, according to Oravec. We lack the decision that there is a certain line which is crime or at least taboo to cross, Oravec said. Also the voice of political figures should be stronger when fighting with extremism. Journalists, analysts and NGOs participate on the public debate about this issue but statements of politicians are missing or are evasive, according to the Institute for Public Affairs (IVO) think-tank president Grigorij Mesežnikov. Have you recently noticed a government representative clearly describing his or her attitude towards extremism and not only in form of general statements? Mesežnikov told The Slovak Spectator. To organise press conference ad hoc after some unpleasant event and then consider the participation on fighting against extremism as complete is insufficient. Improving education As a part of prevention the government should improve education of people about extremism and point on the threat it represents via mass media and schools, according to the concept. The state underestimated the power of education right after Slovakia joined the EU in 2004 and it does not sufficiently explain to public how much organisations like EU or NATO did for Slovak well being. This is the reason why some Slovaks are keen to believe hoaxes, according to Mesežnikov. We should focus on highquality of education of young people so they will be able to critically perceive and sort information and respond on hatred in internet, Oravec said. VIA: Ethical firms honoured Continued from pg 3 Surotchak perceives this incarnation of the awards a breakthrough with record numbers of small and mediumsized companies taking part, including many Slovak companies with no ties to foreign ownership. Among winners are several projects of companies from economically weaker regions of Slovakia, like Banská Bystrica, Trebišov or Partizánske, said Surotchak. Also these prove that they can motivate people to a personal growth, interest in their environs and responsible attitude to environment. More winners The Green Award went to bicycle courier Švihaj Šuhaj, which provides ecological green services in Bratislava and Košice. The jury awarded in this category also an honourable mention. It went to waste treatment company Marius Pedersen in Zvolen for volunteering activities focusing on the environmental education of youth in a playful way. There are two winners of the Award for Excellent Employer category. While OPINION / NEWS April 6 19, DeutschMann InternationaleSpedition in Prešov won the price in the sector of small and medium-sized companies for its education system Progress Board, it also won the Public s Award. Accenture won this category in the sector of large companies. The company Ten Senses, active in Bratislava and Nairobi in Kenya, received the Fair Player in the Market Award for helping local farmers in Kenya. Pontis did not grant the award in the category the Supporter of Volunteering Award but the jury granted a honourable mention to the law firm BNT attorneys-at-law in Bratislava for their services provided pro bono to the Ulita civic association working with children from marginalised groups in Petržalka, the Bratislava suburb. Attorneys helped Ulita in a lawsuit with a construction company, which started building a children s playground but did not complete it despite receiving full payment. There were also two winners in the Good Community Partner Award category. The small-medium sized enterprise award went to GlaxoSmithKline Slovakia for its Second Step training programme of teachers at elementary schools to use ethical education to prevent aggression. The award for a large company went to Embraco Slovakia in Spišská Nová Ves for its grant programme focused on environmental education at schools and kindergartens. Pontis also granted honourable mention in the big business Main Award category for Partizánske Building Components-SK. These are projects and approaches by companies, which are exceptional in their aims, help neighbouring communities, employees, and take the environment into consideration or combat corruption while solve socially demanding problems in Slovakia, Surotchak said. Kiska striking a balance with soft opposition NO matter where your beliefs on the political spectrum fall, any advocate of a genuinely pluralist democracy must admit that President Andrej Kiska s election one year ago wasagoodthingforslovakia. In a country with no credible, coherent or capable political opposition, and a general election approaching, Kiska is forced into the role of the soft opposition to the otherwise dominant Smer party. He has done admirable work in this rather thankless job. Throughtheuseofhisveto even if it is then quickly overriden by Smer s majority in parliament he provides at least some check on power, alerting the public there may be more than meets the eye to laws proposed and quickly passed by Prime Minister Robert Fico s government. In the only such case of Smer admitting a mistake in recent memory, one Kiska veto even stuck and a law to ban fast food in schools, which amazingly failed to define what should be considered fast food, was sent back to the drawing board. This is far from the ideal way for the legislative process to work. Kiska s constitutional powers are limited and he is not meant to play the role of the political opposition. Actual parliamentary debate about the direction of the country is the preferred means. Still, the present situation is nonetheless a marked improvement on what came before, when Smer ally Ivan Gašparovič held sway in the presidential palace and new laws sailed through without somuchasapause. The general practice of Slovakia s parliamentary opposition is to oppose everything proposed by Smer. This is meant to make for good tactical politics, though election results say otherwise. The stubborn repetition of the OPINION BY BENJAMIN CUNNINGHAM practice approaches something like Albert Einstein s definition for insanity, that is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Legitimate queries about soundness of mind aside, the opposition fails to recognise how confusing this gimmickry is to the average voter. How is one to determine the difference between a truly corrupt or dangerous law and one that is merely opposed out of political calculus? On the accounting ledger of the centre right opposition parties, all Smer-proposed laws are equally bad. Criticism comes across as noise, which it is, and the opposition loses what s left of its credibility. The debate over proposed changes to the public procurement law is a fitting example of this foolishness. The hastily conceived changes purport to limit shell companies ability to bid on public contracts. The law came in reaction to a spate of procurement scandals involving hospitals at the end of The right-leaning opposition took JÁN PALLO - Publisher EDITORIAL MICHAELA TERENZANI - Editor-In-Chief JANA LIPTÁKOVÁ - Managing Editor BENJAMIN CUNNINGHAM- Senior Editor RAUB WILLIAM MURRAY - Copy Editor ZUZANA VILIKOVSKÁ - Staff Writer ROMAN CUPRIK - Staff Writer RADKA MINARECHOVÁ - Staff Writer & Project Manager BEATA BALOGOVÁ - Special Contributor TOM NICHOLSON - Special Contributor PETER ADAMOVSKÝ - Freelancer ERIK RÉDLI - Freelancer LAYOUT MIROSLAV ŠMIČKO - Graphic Designer SALES - FINANCES BEATA FOJTÍKOVÁ - Sales Executive JOZEF HÁMORSKÝ - Circulation Manager & Sales Executive the opportunity to point out the shortcomings of the law, which they argued was full of loopholes and would fail to curb corrupt bidding on public contracts. This may well be true, but how valid are these critiques coming from political parties thatwereinpowerfor10ofthe 14 years between 1998 and 2012, but failed to pass any meaningful legislation on the issue themselves? Kiska vetoed the law and recommended eight changes. Smer accepted three of them. The president s reservations are specific, as were his recommendations and Smer s decision to ignore most of them are things which they can be held accountable for when the next scandal erupts. Kiska has also done the country well in terms of its perception abroad. His 2014 visit to the United States included stops at business incubators, the headquarters of Facebook, MIT and Stanford. This was a conscious attempt to brand Slovakia as innovative, progressive and tech savvy, perhaps not images that jump to American minds when they think of central Europe. Amid continued Russian aggression in neighbouring Ukraine, Kiska has publicly played the role of staunch NATO supporter. Alongside a lack of clarity from Fico, who expresses reticence about European sanctions policy before his government goes along with it, this goes a long way to convince others that Slovakia swims in the European mainstream. Can you imagine what this country s position on Ukraine would look like if we still had both Gašparovič and Fico in office? asks Milan Nič, director of the Central European Policy Institute. Be thankful there is no needtodoso. The Slovak Spectator is an independent newspaper published by The Rock, s.r.o. Subscriptions: Inquiries should be made to The Slovak Spectator s business office at (+421-2) 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/ 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 such commercial enterprises or ventures by The Slovak Spectator or The Rock s.r.o. ISSN Address: The Rock, s.r.o., Lazaretská 12, Bratislava. IČO:

14 6 April 6 19, 2015 Private railway operator may come Air line boost visitor rate in Tatras BUSINESS FOCUS TRANSPORT Next issue: BUSINESS FOCUS TELECOMMUNICATIONS INTERNET & ONLINE SERVICES Mixed results in Slovak air travel FOCUS shorts Ryanair opens base in Bratislava BY ERIK RÉDLI Special to the Spectator THE TWO biggest airports in Slovakia, in Bratislava and Košice, saw opposite developments last year. While air traffic stagnated in the capital, Košice was one of the five fastest growing airports in Europe last year. New routes and the arrival of more low-cost carriers have some industry experts hoping for more growth in In the long term air transport in Slovakia, at least in terms of the number of passengers, is rather stagnant, Pavol Kajánek, the division director of the research and development department at the Transport Research Institute (VÚD), told The Slovak Spectator. In this respect Kajánek sees the biggest challenge of Slovakia s air transport as not only expanding regular direct lines between airports in Bratislava and Košice and destinations most popular with passengers, but also in the form of regular flights connecting main airports in Slovakia with important European hub airports from which passengers would be able to continue directly to their final destination. The pre-condition for such regular lines is that these flights take place at times which are most interesting for passengers and that connect with regular lines from hub airlines to other destinations, said Kajánek. According to Antonín Kazda, head of the Air Transport Department at the University of Žilina, the position of air transport in Slovakia and in Europe should be assessed from the viewpoint of global trends, in particular growth in the share of low-cost carriers in the entire air transport system. In this respect Kazda pointed out that low-cost carriers are able to attract just a narrow segment of passengers, those driven by price. Kazda further pointed out that low-cost carriers operating in Slovakia often offer flights at inconvenient times and thus their offer of routes and destinations do not satisfy those on business trips and those travelling to hub airports with connections to other destinations. Moreover, the Air transport in Slovakia still has room to expand. time needed to travel from northern Slovakia to airports that provide scheduled air transport significantly exceeds the usual limit of 60 minutes. Thus the main challenge for passenger air traffic in Slovakia is to secure regular air transport for business travellers from regional airports by connecting these to some of the hubs, said Kazda. BratislavaandKošice The M. R. Štefánik Airport in Bratislava transported 1,355,265 passengers last year, a decline of 1.3 percent compared to the previous year. It offered direct connections to 14 destinations with London being the most popular with almost 275,000 passengers, followed by holiday resorts in Turkey and Greek islands. After a several years of decline the airport in Bratislava expects an increase in transported passengers thanks to new routes and arrival of new air carriers, M. R. Štefánik Airport s General Director Ivan Trhlík told The Slovak Spectator, adding that the Ireland-based Ryanair has opened a new base in Bratislava in late March. In recent years, the Bratislava airport relied on low-cost carriers but after a complete withdrawal of Easy-Jet and cancellation of some Ryanair routes, the airport experienced a decline in the frequency of flights and departing passengers. The Dubai-based airline Flydubai added Bratislava to its growing network as part of its significant expansion in central and southeastern Europe in late The launch of the new scheduled flight connection between Bratislava and Dubai is a great business success, Trhlík said, as cited in a press release. During the first week of December, another airline, Austria s Niki, unveiled its plans to introduce connections from Bratislava to Brussels and Mallorca via Vienna. But the original launch was postponed from April to OctoberthisyearorApril2016. Ryanair has opened a new base in Bratislava late in March and it will have two planes based here. Trhlík said the carrier will add three new routes to Athens, Madrid and Berlin and will increase the frequency of its flights to London, Dublin and Liverpool. The changes will require a $200 million investment and will transport almost 1 million customers per year to Bratislava, Ryanair wrote in its press release. Trhlík believes that the base in Bratislava will also bring better timing of departures and arrivals for passengers. Already now we can say that our assumptions about an increase in passengers in 2015 are being fulfilled, said Trhlík, adding that the number of passengers increased by 31 percent or 32,329 passengers during the first two months of 2015 compared with the previous year. Letisko Košice (Košice Airport) experienced a 50-percent increase compared with the previous year to 365,000 passengers. Tomáš Jančuš, deputy to the airport s executive director, ascribes the positive developments a new low-cost connection to London, the stable operation of flights to Bratislava, Vienna and Prague and the best charter season in the history of the Košice airport. Hungarian low-cost airline Wizz Air will open its Košice base as early as June 5 and flights to Milan s Bergamo airport and Doncaster Sheffield Airport in the UK will be available as of June 5 and June 7, respectively. The air carrier also announced a boost in its flights tolondonto10timesaweek. Opening of the new bases [of Wizz Air in Košice and Ryanair in Bratislava] is excellent news for Slovakia, Jančuš said, adding that it is beneficial especially for Košice which so far has had only limited access to low-cost air transport. He noted the key benefits, apart from improved flight connections, as an increase in the attractiveness of Košice and eastern Slovakia for foreign investors as well as an added value for development of tourism. Altogether, the new Wizz Air base will feature 14 flights on a weekly basis during the upcoming summer season. Originally, Wizz Air had planned to launch flights to Milan and Sheffield in September 2015, using an Airbus A320. SeeAIRpg8 IRISH low-cost airline Ryanair has opened a base at Bratislava s M. R. Štefánik Airport after nearly 10 years of operating flights to and from Bratislava on March 30. The investment was projected at $200 million when the plan was announced in November. It s a very important event for us, as Bratislava airport will see the return of a carrier that will base its aircraft here for the first time in many years, something that we haven t seen since SkyEurope, said the airport s general director Ivan Trhlík, as cited by the TASR newswire. He is expecting an increase in the number of passengers thanks to the move. SkyEurope, which was also a low-cost airline, had its main base in Bratislava until 2009, when it suspended all flights and announced bankruptcy. Ryanair s new base will feature two specially based aircraft that will fly from the city early in the morning, serving a number of destinations across Europe before coming back in the evening. The low-fare airline is also considering basing other planes in the Slovak capital later on. No Ryanair plane has remained at the airport overnight in the past, according to the airport s spokesperson Veronika Ševčíková. The new base means that passengers will be able to enjoy better departure times in the early morning and late evening. The figures for passengers in January, February and March, a period before the opening of the base, show as much as a 30- percent hike compared to last year, said Trhlík. We expect the increase in passenger numbers for the whole of 2015 to be massive. We re talking hundreds of thousands of passengers more than in Furthermore, Ryanair is set to open two new routes to Athens and Madrid, which will be served three times a week. In total, the company will fly to 17 destinations to and from Bratislava in the summer season. Moreover, the winter season should see yet another route added as of October. Ryanair passengers will be able to fly to Berlin on a daily basis. RegioJet cites growth since 2012 THE CZECH railway carrier RegioJet claims it has tripled the number of passengers using the Bratislava-Komárno route since it took over from the state railway operator Železničná spoločnosť Slovensko (ZSSK) three years ago. The company is taking credit for shifting commuters who use the route from cars to trains. Modern RegioJet trains proved that if passengers are offered good-quality services, they are willing to switch from a car to a train, owner of RegioJet Radim Jančura told the Hospodárske noviny daily. In three years we have proven even before the controversial, populist law on free train travel of [Prime Minister] Robert Fico that passenger train transport can be done in a different way in Slovakia: well, responsibly and, most of all, so that it is attractive for the travelling public. This change has also influenced the real estate market around the capital, according to Jančura. The buyers actively search whether our trains stop in the due municipality, he said. RegioJet makes each municipality with a train station more attractive. Passenger trains and regional express trains of RegioJet run on the Bratislava- Komárno track and back based on the order of the Slovak Transport Ministry, in public interest. They connect Komárno with the capital on a daily basis, with more than 15 lines within a close vicinity of Bratislava, securing passenger transport with almost 30 lines, according to the firm. Moreover, RegioJet also operates, apart from the trains on the already mentioned route, the modern InterCity RegioJet trains on the route Bratislava-Žilina-Košice, since December 2014; and also the bus line Bratislava-Nitra- Banská Bystrica since February In March, a RegioJet train derailed at Bratislava s main station. Nobody was seriously injured in the mishap. Compiled by

15 BUSINESS FOCUS April 6 19, Bus companies rethink loss-making routes Gov t plan to discount rail prices spurs drop in bus passengers BY PETER ADAMOVSKÝ Special to the Spectator Discounted rail passes have reduced suburban bus transport in some regions. WHILE railway transportation is booming thanks to the government s so-called free trains measure and discounts for commuters, bus companies have begun cutting routes amid mounting losses. Passengers who have shifted to train travel do so primarily on long-distance transport which take place without any subsidies, but the changes have also impacted suburban bus lines subsidised by self-governing regions that ensure connectivity outside major cities. As reported by the Bus Transport Association (ZAD), the average drop in suburban bus transport is only 2.7 percent while the drop in a longdistance bus trips approaches 17.3 percent. On the basis of these results carriers are reviewing the running of some routes with the aim of limiting losses from those activities, ZAD President Peter Pobeha told The Slovak Spectator. For example, bus transportation companies SAD Žilina and SAD Prievidza cancelled some routes in February, the TASR newswire reported. The Transport, Construction and Regional Development Ministry, however, has pointed out that the loss of passengers has come only on bus routes that directly compete with railways. Switching has appeared on the shared lines with halfempty subsidised trains and buses, Transport Ministry spokesman Martin Kóňa told The Slovak Spectator, adding that the preference for trains is a general trend in Europe. Passengers are travelling in the most ecological and economical way. Weakcollaboration The interests of bus carriers operating suburban transport do not jive with the interests of the state-owned passenger rail carrier Železničná Spoločnosť Slovensko (ZSSK), resulting in a lack of cooperation. While all 1,600 trains from ZSSK have been ordered and subsidised by the Transport Ministry, bus companies receive subsidies only from regional governments. According to officials with the Bratislava Self-Governing Region (BSK), it is essential to support public transportation in its entirety, including bus companies. The decision to support only train service seems to be unsystematic and not conceptual, said the spokeswoman for BSK, Iveta Tyšlerová, because the buses play a significant role in regional transportation. Officials from the Košice Self-Governing Region have proposed to define the scope of social rebates for all modes of public transportation. Pobeha of the ZAD agrees that collaboration and joint support have an essential role in public transportation. SeeBUSpg8 Boats on the Danube may speed up commuting to Bratislava Slovakia has untapped potential in using water ways BY RADKA MINARECHOVÁ THE RECENTLY introduced Danubebus project may soon enable residents three municipalities south of Bratislava situated near the Danube River to commute to Bratislava by boat. Though the pontoon docks in the harbours have already beenbuiltitisnotclearyetwhentheroute will be open as the responsible parties are still dealing with procuring boats. The three floating concrete pontoons near Bratislava s Čunovo district, the village of Hamuliakovo and the town of Šamorín were ceremonially opened in late October One area also has a waiting room, a buffet and restrooms. The construction was initiated by the mayors of the three municipalities and implemented by state-run Vodohospodárska Výstavba company. The total cost was nearly 2 million. The building of pontoons was a condition for launching further stages of the Passenger boats could serve tourists as well as regular commuters. project to establish the river connection between these municipalities and Bratislava. The new pontoons represent the gateway for Čunovo, Hamuliakovo and Šamorín, allowing transportation to these places also by water, Diana Migaľová, spokesperson for Vodohospodárska Výstavba, told The Slovak Spectator. Transport by passenger boat is a common mode of transportation in the world. It is possible for regular commuters to use it, thus circumventing the traffic jams on the main roads to Bratislava, but also by tourists who could see the surroundings of the capital from another view, she added. The advantages [of this project] are especially the quick transport to the city centre, thereby relieving traffic on the roads, Gabriela Ferenčáková, mayor of Čunovo, told The Slovak Spectator. See BOAT pg 8 Private railway operator may come THE RAILWAY track between Bratislava and Banská Bystrica may see a private carrier soon. The Transport Ministry led by Ján Počiatek is preparing a tender for companies to operate the train line on this track. Our goal is to organise a tender for this express line in the course of this year, spokesman of the Transport, Construction and Regional Development Ministry Martin Kóňa told the TASR newswire. He added, however, that the ministry is now only beginning and the whole liberalisation process is being launched and the conditions are being defined. Thus, he refused to elaborate more details on the project. A private carrier would operate the route with a state subsidy, which would make it the second such route in Slovakia; RegioJet currently operates trains between Bratislava and Komárno on a similar principle. The state has chosen the route from the capital to Banská Bystrica, as it is a Airline boosts visitor rate in Tatras THE FIRST season of a flight connection between the Slovak city of Poprad, lying under the foot of the Tatra mountains, and the Latvian capital of Riga has positively impacted the number of visitors to both the High and Low Tatras. The new flight route has been most used by Latvians, Estonians and Russians, but the numbers of Finns and Swedes has also increased. Although the original goal of flying 2,600 passengers during this season was only 65 percent fulfilled, the Poprad airport is not disappointed with the result. The route has proven viable in less than three months, Ivan Hečko of the Poprad-Tatras airport told the SITA newswire. The statistics have so far shown that air- Baltic, which operates the route, managed to fully compensate the drop of flying tourists from Russia and Ukraine. Moreover, the number of tourists arriving by plane increased by 509 people FOCUS shorts Planes brought more tourists to the Tatras. continuous line that has sufficient capacity of train power output, i.e. about 1.3 million train-kilometres. Thus, it is large enough, with an independent set of trains, and can be operated with a lower risk of failure. Currently, eight duo express trains ride on the track. The inclusion of two couples of extra-trains which currently operate on the track, too in the tender is being considered, Kóňa said, adding that the stateowned Železničná Spoločnosť Slovensko (ZSSR) that now operates the track willmost probably bid on the tender. ZSSK is essentially interested in participation in tenders for express lines, but the final decision will always be connected with specific conditions of the competition, ZSSK spokeswoman Jana Morháčová told TASR. Several railway carriers have shown interest in this tender, according to the Hospodárske noviny daily, such as Arriva Slovensko, RegioJet and LEO Express. compared to the previous year. Thanks to the regular connection with Riga, more guests from Baltic countries arrived to the High and Low Tatras. The new air route has been positively reflected in the visitors rate in the region, as the passengers from Riga accounted for more than 4,500 overnight stays with accommodation facilities in the High Tatras and Liptov between December 13, 2014 and March 7, 2015, said Darina Bartková, head of the Regional Tourism Organisation Región Liptov. The new route was launched by airbaltic and its Slovak partners in mid December 2014 and its first season ended on March 7. Of the total number of passengers carried, 80 percent were headed to Slovakia mostly tourists, while the remaining 20 percent were travelling salespeople and passengers heading to Riga and northern Europe for business. Compiled by

16 8 April 6 19, 2015 BUSINESS FOCUS BOAT: Waterways offer efficient travel Continued from pg 7 One of the disadvantages, however, is the pontoon s distance, she added. It is located near the white water complex, outside the municipality. Securing the transport connection to the harbour would increase the interest in this kind of transport from the side of not only the inhabitants of Čunovo, but also Slovaks living in the nearby Hungarian villages, Ferenčáková said. Launch is unclear The construction of the pontoon docks is only the first phaseoftheprojectwhoseaim is to expand boat transport on the Danube. Other phases include the construction of piers for the small ships and then establishing a regular schedule between Bratislava and the municipalities, the TASR newswire wrote. The project is currently in the phase of searching for money to procure the boats designed for this kind of transport, Ľubomír Feješ of company Nautivia, the author of the project, told The Slovak Spectator, adding that the firm is currently discussing the possibilities with banks of taking a loan or using leasing for the boats Pontoon docks have been built on the Danube. The regular line may be established in 2016 at the earliest, Feješ said. He added, however, that the whole process might be speeded up if the project got support from authorities from the public sector. It works in a similar way when it comes to other forms of suburban service, and also to similar projects of passenger boat transport in other European cities, Feješ added. It is also not clear where the pontoon will be placed in Bratislava. According to the plans, it should be at a place that will secure good public transport connections to the rest of the city, TASR wrote. The most appropriate place would be near Eurovea shopping centre, Feješ said. Another still unsettled thing remains the price of a ticket. The mayors, however, say it should not be more than what people pay for a bus or train ticket, the Pravda daily wrote. Slovak rivers have potential Regarding passenger transport on waterways, Slovakia lags behind its neighbours through which the Danube flows and does not fully use the potential that rivers have, Feješ said. Transport by water is nothing new for Slovakia. In the past, a national fleet of mercantile boats for transporting goods and people was developed and had an important place among the fleets of other countries on the Danube. Its development, however, was stopped by the economic crisis in the 1980s, the Transport Ministry spokesperson told The Slovak Spectator. The European Union considers this kind of transport the most ecologically and economically sound and as part of its transport policy it is gradually creating conditions for establishing better waterway infrastructure. It is among Slovakia s priorities for the programme period, as part of the Operational Programme Integrated Infrastructure, the spokesperson added. Our aim is to use the geographical benefit and location of Slovakia on the important route of the Danube and also to create conditions to use the potential of Slovak rivers for waterway transport, Kóňa said. The country will focus on two projects. First, to modernise and complete parts of the public port in Bratislava and second to improve the navigability of the Danube, which will also impact use of existing harbours on the river, he added. When it comes to development of the boat transport, Feješ points to the importance of support from public administration, including guarantees and funding, either via loans or contributions from EU funds. He compared meeting these conditions to the successful project of the Baťa Channel on the Morava River. BUS: Discount train fares alter market Continued from pg 7 The ZAD calls on the Transport Ministry with a request for negotiation to ensure common action in the interest of improving public transport, Pobeha said. The rail subsidy scheme could extend to buses, according to the Transport Ministry, although subsidising bus transport is in power of regional governments. Still, for subsidies to occur, train and bus routes should not compete with one another, Kóňa said. Pressure to harmonise Trains have become more popular. Better harmonisation and the removal of overlapping routes could help curb losses by bus companies. Many regions have to rely on the regional bus lines, thus residents are discriminated against by the railway rebates. Proper coordination would ensure that passengers who have to use various modes for travelling to work or school arrive in time. According to ZSSK, it is much more complicated to change the departure time of train compared to a bus. Amendment of the arrival time at one stop for just a few minutes can disrupt connections in all the other regions. Twenty-one trains are connected to the Bratislava Žilina Košice express lines, ZSSK spokeswoman Jana Morháčová told The Slovak Spectator. Morháčová also pointed out that ZSSK has established so-called clock-face scheduling according to which commuters and express trains leave at regular intervals; therefore the displacement of one implies the need to move the other on the same route. Thus the change in the west of country will affect conditions in the east, she said. BSK has reacted with new bus schedules, according to Tyšlerová. Pobeha of ZAD acknowledges that bus carriers in other regions acting similarly. Currently we are harmonising hundreds of lines with the railways, Pobeha said. But only where it ensures a guaranteed improvement in quality. Patrik Velšic, spokesman of the Trnava Self-Governing Region, said his region adjusts bus schedules every year to match changes by the railway. The priority is to minimise simultaneous transport and improve flow, he said. In contrast, officials of Prešov Region say they are less likely to significantly alter bus schedules. The region must comply with valid contracts with public carriers for the years 2009 to 2018, Veronika Fitzeková, spokeswoman of Prešov Self-Governing Region, told The Slovak Spectator, adding that intervention in routes can occur only after communication with the local authorities. The Transport Ministry would also like to use a better harmonisation mechanism to remove overlaps of trains and buses. Both modes are paid out of taxpayers money, so if they go the same route at the same time it has a negative impact on taxpayers and passengers, the Transport Ministry s Kóňa said. Tyšlerová of BSK disagrees with complete abolishment of overlapping buses and trains, citing rush hours that see a spike in passengers. We prefer to improve the supply before reduction of mass public transport options, she said. According to ZAD officials travel preferences vary but the free or discounted train fares mean those who have an option are likely to choose trains. If we begin to command people in choosing their public transport mode, there could be a risk that they choose individual [car] transport, Pobeha said. This is not our aim and certainly not the aim of the state. AIR: Rail travel versus air Continued from pg 6 But while Kajánek sees the launch of bases of lowcost airlines positively, Kazda remains sceptical. The launch of new bases will undoubtedly lead to an increase of passengers, but it is questionable whether the operation of low-cost carriers would cover costs of the airports [in Bratislava and Košice], said Kazda, adding that conditions under which Ryanair would operate in Bratislava are not known and that the dominance of this strong carrier discourages others from entering the market. Lacking state support While some kinds of passenger transport receive support from the state, this is not the case for air transport. Passenger air transport is part of the system of transport serveability of the territory of the state, said Kazda. Scheduled air transport is a significant factor in the development of the region and a catalyst for its economy. Contrary to other forms of transport, bus and rail transport, there exist neither financial nor systematic support for scheduled air transport and regional airports. In this respect Kazda was not only speaking about subsidies. According to him, a survey of passengers who instead of taking flights from Slovakia use services of airports close to borders would provide relevant information about the Slovak market and prospective passengers. This would help during negotiations with carriers about opening new routes. The performance of airports in the sector of charters and low-cost carriers make up only a portion of the air passenger transport from Slovakia, said Kazda. Based on estimates, most travellers, especially from the most lucrative sector of business travellers, use Vienna airport. More airlines use the Bratislava airport. In this respect he pointed out that Bratislava airport has failed so far to obtain connections operated by so-called traditional carriers. Trhlík of the Bratislava airport noted that Slovakia lacks a national flagship carrier, which could secure air connections between Bratislava and important cities, pointing out that even Montenegro with only 623,000 citizens has its national carrier with six planes. A national carrier would significantly contribute to development of air transport in Slovakia, said Trhlík. Rail versus air While a complete highway connection between Bratislava and Košice is still lacking, the cities are connected by rail as well as air. But experts do not expect that the latest changes in support for rail transport, where train fares are free or discounted to a significant portion of the population, will affect the air connection between Bratislava and Košice. Kajánek believes that the domestic line between Bratislava and Košice should be understood and operated as an offer of transport for higher middle business clients and meet the needs and expectations of this group of passengers. In his opinion even after the latest changes in the rail fares would not mean competition for air transport on this route. Kazda agrees, adding that the latest changes in rail transport are targeted on groups of passengers who are not perspective for domestic air transport. Domestic air transport is justified between Bratislava and Košice with connections to Prague or another hub, said Kazda. Connecting Žilina to some important hub with a stop at another regional airport, for example in Brno or Ostrava, to fully use the capacity of the route could be similarly promising.

17 FIRM: Restructuring draws scrutiny Continued from pg 1 Restructuring Another of the country s biggest construction firms, Doprastav, recently underwent a similar restructuring process. Much like Váhostav-SK they were failing to pay subcontractors. Doprastav blamed the bad economic situation and decline in demand for construction. In recent years it has been common practice for construction firms to take contracts below costs to keep its labour force and machinery active, amid pledges to make up for the difference with profits from other projects. Those more profitable orders now look as if they did not arrive fast enough. Last year Váhostav-SK took note of several proposals by creditors to seize assets to cover debts and instead sought restructuring. Váhostav-SK asked a court for protection from creditors on September 26 and to launch the restructuring process. This process will allow the firm to reduce part of its debts and avoid liquidation. The Bratislava I District Court accepted the request. Now Váhostav-SK is working on its restructuring plan when the committee of creditors consisting of Slovenská Sporiteľňa, ČSOB and Tatra Banka, as well as the construction company Doprastav and subcontractor Lomark, returned its draft on March 31 for reworking. The firm has 15 days to respond. In its original plan it planned to settle 15 percent of its debts or 15.7 million to small and medium-sized companies. So-called secured creditors, that are especially banks that have secured their loans with collateral, will receive 100 percent of their claims. In total the firm wants to repay just 32.3 percent of its total debts of 136 million, or 43.9 million. Charges against Váhostav-SK On March 27 opposition MPs Igor Matovič (Ordinary People and Independent Personalities ADVERTISEMENT SP015019/001 SP015019/005 SP013223/023 Váhostav-SK is heavily involved in building highways. OĽaNO), Daniel Lipšic (independent, non-parliamentary NOVA) and Ľubomír Galko (Freedom and Solidarity SaS) filed a criminal complaint against an unknown perpetrator about the restructuring of Váhostav-SK. According to the MPs, the firm s management has committed several crimes, including deliberate bankruptcy, damaging creditors, thwarting bankruptcy and settlement proceedings, preferential treatment of creditors and fraud. The whole process of restructuring of Váhostav-SK looks like it is fraudulent, said Lipšic, as cited by SITA. The problem is that the course of restructuring is fraudulent, for example how claims from fictitious companies in Cyprus and Belize are registered. Lipšic has also suspicions that representatives of Váhostav-SK at the time when they were signing contracts for highway construction back in 2011 knew that they would not be able to pay their subcontractors. It is very important that bodies active in prosecution start to deal with the case as soon as possible so that the restructuring plan of Váhostav- SK is not approved, said Lipšic. The court is obliged to turn down such a plan if approval of such a plan was achieved by fraudulent actions. We have from today two months when the court will decide about confirming or not confirming the restructuring plan. The General Prosecution in collaboration with the Nation- ACCOMMODATION TICKETS TRANSPORT Tel: +421 (0) SP015043/001 ENGLISH LANGUAGE WORSHIP Bratislava International Church Sundays, 10:00 at historic Small Lutheran Church (Malý evanjelický kostol) in central Bratislava (near Hodzovo namestie); on Lycejna at intersection with Panenska 26/28. Children's Sunday School provided. Everyone Welcome. Information at Web Site: SP015023/006 BUSINESS / NEWS April 6 19, al Criminal Agency (NAKA) are already checking various circumstances. Opposition parties such as the Christian Democratic Movement (KDH) and non-parliamentary Sieť of Radoslav Procházka are calling for help to small businesses and the self-employed to whom Váhostav-SK wants to pay only a fraction of what it owes. KDH is calling for a special parliamentary session on Váhostav-SK. We want to deal with this and other cases, which we consider to be fraudulent conduct against the weak, conduct which suits the powerful but harms not only the economy but also real families, said KDH chairman Ján Figeľ, as cited by TASR. He pointed out that under the process of restructuring five shell companies have been created and that there is a serious suspicion that in the committee of creditors there were companies which have funnelled state payments to exotic destinations so that Váhostav-SK need not fully pay its debts. According to the Sieť party, victims of the restructuring of Váhostav-SK need immediate practical help from the state, which has turned a deaf ear to the desperate situation of families of self-employed craftsmen and small entrepreneurs. Sieť wants justice for the self-employed and small entrepreneurs, said Procházka, as cited by TASR. Their claims should be fully settled; equally to banks which have lent money to Váhostav-SK. The small and weak have the right for the same approach as the large and strong. While Fico first sought to stay out of the process, he later even convened a press conference on March 27 to announce that his cabinet would support investigation of Váhostav-SK s restructuring process and proposed measures to avoid similar situations in the future. He also blamed the previous Radičová s cabinet, on which Figeľ sat as the transport minister, demanding that construction companies build highways cheaply, for the current problems of Váhostav-SK. There was a high interest in doing politics that our first government built highways expensively and the government of Iveta Radičová built them very cheaply, said Fico, as cited by TASR. He used an example of a project of the D1 motorway stretch between Dubná Skala- Turany, the contract signed during Radičová s term in In that case, while state expert opinion showed that the project could be built for million, the winning bid was just million. The difference was nearly 60 percent, said Fico, adding that this was the kind of pressure that was imposed on companies by then transport minister Figeľ in order to demonstrate politically that tenders during their first government ( ) were overpriced. Thus companies, including Váhostav-SK which signed contracts under the term of Radičová, might have a motive to engage in fraud. Figeľ responded that it was neither the cabinet of Radičová nor him who pressed on construction companies to reduce bids in highway construction tenders and that it was the market which generated such prices. He sees Fico s criticism as an indirect confession that the first Fico government set highway prices politically and not via transparent competitions, TASR wrote. The KDH head also recalled that current Transport Minister Ján Počiatek behaved similarly when he accepted a price of 410 million for construction of the Višňové highway tunnel, a price 55 percent lower than that estimated by the state s experts of 900 million. Fico also recalled that the current law on restructuring was adopted by the second Mikuláš Dzurinda cabinet and that 781 proposals for restructuring were submitted between 2006 and 2014, out of which courts allowed 526 restructurings. The opposition argued that the Fico cabinets have had seven years to change the restructuring legislation while it not only has not done so but they even turned down draft legislation prepared by the opposition. Ownership structure There are three Slovak companies behind Váhostav-SK linked with Juraj Široký, according to Transparency International Slovakia and Bisnode investigation. Ownership relationships continue to Cyprus, New Zealand and Costa Rica. There are also some suspicions that behind the shell companies that are creditors of Váhostav-SK is Široký himself and thus part of money to be paid out during restructuring would end in his shell companies, Denník N wrote. If the owners of Váhostav- SK on one side and its creditors on the opposite side have any ownership relationships between them, there is a danger that the whole process of restructuring debts would be considered as manipulated and the company might be put out of business anyway. CARE: Nurses resign in protest Continued from pg 4 All about politics Mass departures are not the first problem Volák has had to face. In January 2013 private broadcaster TV Markíza reported that the hospital ordered a management restructuring plan for 10,000 from a company whose legal representative was Juraj Majer, a boilerman. It also reported that he is a neighbour of Volák. In this case we consider the occupation of the authorised representative of the firm [which prepared the plan] to be absolutely irrelevant, commented Zuzana Zvolenská who then served as health minister, as quoted by the Sme daily. The current problem with the nurses and doctors is occurring the year before parliamentary elections. Moreover, the health-care sector had a series of scandals in 2014 making the public more sensitive to such cases. Szalay commented that Volák was forced to leave after the current scandal and not the previous one. His [Volák] mistake was that he let the situation to reach the state when it draws such media attention, Szalay said. When dealing with the departures Volák behaved confidently and said that his decision was definitely not voluntary, according to political analyst Jan Baránek. He referred to Volák s statement that if nurses didl not change their minds he would close the entire intensive care unit. Volák s departure is a message for employees of other hospitals that if they persevere in their efforts and get media coverage it is not a problem to have a director recalled a year before elections, according to Szalay. Minister s visit changed nothing Fico stressed during the Slovak Radio discussion that he had to exert pressure on Čislák and send him to Žilina. Despite his visit in the hospital on March 23 where he personally spoke with hospital employees, 64 nurses and 13 doctors did not recall their resignations. Volák s decision to step down does not resolve the problems that patients in the hospital s internal medicine ward face but does give hope for an improvement in the situation for Žilina hospital s patients, according to Visolajský. The 13 doctors of the internal medicine ward have said that they ll withdraw their resignations only if the adverse situation of the patients is addressed, Visolajský said in a press release. He added that doctors have been pointing to bad conditions in the internal medicine department for four years, problems that were noted by an inspection from the district public health authority and the regional chief public health officer. Kavecká said that Volák s leave was necessary but only the first step to improve the situation in the hospital, according to TASR. Čislák stated that he needs time to examine the situation because some pieces of information are contradicting one other. I need to verify some things to make my decision right and optimal for all employees, Čislák said, as quoted by SITA, I need to find out what the problem is and I will give final information about what I am going to do in this hospital during this week for sure. The role of the minister Meanwhile opposition parties NOVA, Ordinary People and Independent Personalities (OĽaNO) and Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) began clamouring on March 24 for a no-confident vote for Čislák, SITA reported. Despite the current tense situation in the health-care sector Fico is not considering dismissal of Čislák, he said on the sidelines of the government session in Trenčín on March 25. We re all supporting him at the moment and we strive to create the best conditions possible for him, said Fico, as quoted by TASR. Believe me, it isn t easy to move around these days in Slovak health care, in this desert that was made [when the opposition was in power]. Fico further stated that the post of health minister is not a reward but a punishment, which is attributable to the reforms of previous right-leaning governments. The health minister is a mere cosmetic accessory in the whole health-care sector and Fico is the man who leads the hospitals, according to Szalay. Dušan Zachar of INEKO agreed, adding that mixing politics with hospital management can lead to the situation when heads of hospitals are reluctant to take unpopular steps because of pressure from politicians who do not want to lose votes. When the prime minister sacks a hospital director it shows that the healthcare sector is sick, Szalay told Sme.

18 10 April 6 19, 2015 CULTURE Whippings all in good fun as Easter tradition BY ZUZANA VILIKOVSKÁ IN SLOVAKIA old pagan seasonal rituals must have survived the country s conversion to Christianity and one need look no further than the Easter tradition of whipping girls and women with homemade switches. Made from young willow branches, the whippings are followed by a splashing with with water, ideally ice-cold. Both are meant to guarantee girls and women stay young, fit and beautiful all year long. The tradition became linked with Easter after Christianity came to Slovakia in the ninth century, some sources suggest. But the traditions originated as part of folk beliefs based on nature s cycle. Though a moveable holiday, Easter generally coincides with the arrival of spring and thus is celebrated as a time of new life and rebirth. Processions were meant to drive away evil spirits, houses were decorated with vegetation, and whipping and water were employed to ensure a young woman s fertility and beauty. It was believed that the vitality from the young twigs entwined in the whip would flow into the female body. Boys and men were offered decorated eggs, which also symbolised new life. The ancient rites have changed with the gradual urbanisation of Slovakia, and in the cities, women are rather sprayed with a perfume and Traditional Easter in SNM, Martin. symbolically hit once or twice with whatever apt beating tool men can find. Eggs given as a reward for their beating are often also rather massmade or chocolate ones, instead of the originally handmade decorated eggs; the style, technique and ornament used to be typical for each village, town, or region. The days preceding Easter Monday are generally reserved and religiously oriented, but on this day, a distinctly un- Christian atmosphere breaks out. Starting in early morning, males visit their female relatives, friends and colleagues, whipping them with a korbáče and splashing them with water. Instead of being reported to the police, they are offered eggs, sweets, cakes and alcohol. During White Saturday there were several other customs connected with agriculture, health and protection of one s home. Preparation of the Easter Sunday meal ham, eggs, lamb and cakes began. Fried rolls with poppy seeds or sheep s cheese and sauerkraut soup were traditionally eaten on White Saturday. Photo: Courtesy of SNM Easter Sunday the day of Christ s resurrection is an opportunity to bless Easter meals and a time for ceremonial fare. Before Easter dinner, an egg was also divided among all family members to remind them not to forget each other and to stick together. For those wishing to try and revive some of the old customs and handicrafts, there are some opportunities today. The ÚĽUV centre of traditional arts and crafts each year offers some workshops on egg decorating, but it is advisable to check whether they are offered also in English at its website, The museums and venues administered by the Slovak National Museum also offer some Easter decorations and an insight into Slovak traditions in Martin, at Betliar and Bojnice castles, in the Museum of Ruthenian Culture in Prešov, or close to Bratislava, at the Červený Kameň (Red Stone) castle. More information can be found at Some smaller museums of local cultural centres also offer exhibitions of decorated Easter eggs or special Easter whips, the korbáče. Many cities and towns offer Easter markets with traditional goods and meals, and some places even organise the re-enactment of the Via Dolorosa, Christ s walk to the crucifixion. The ski season ends in many resorts around Easter, too, and in Kremnica, a fun event called Easter Egg is organised annually, requiring skiers to masquerade. This year, doctors and nurses are preferred at this mock Easter skiing probably to emphasise the recent series of scandals in the health-care sector. It takes place on Easter Monday at 14:00 in downtown Kremnica. Easter exhibition at the culture centre in Trebišov. Latino meets jazz on the Danube IN THE world of jazz, international collaborations and musical mergers are not unusual. However, the Rio Danubio album combines not just Latin and classical jazz, but interesting musicians as well. It consists of two quite different parts recorded in two separate sessions. In the first, Brazilian drummer Andre Antunes performs together with Slovaks Roland Kaník on piano, trombonist Michal Motýľ, Pavol Bereza on guitar, bass players Juraj Griglák and Michal Šimko, as well as Slovak-Peruvian percussionist Eddy Portella). Mainstream jazz classics can be found here, including Here s the Rainy Day, which Rothenstein dedicated to musicians of the US West Coast, like Jim Hall and Paul Desmond. The second session, called Latin Evening, includes drummer Marian Ševčík, bass player Vlado Máčaj and pianist Ľubomír Šrámek, along with Portella. I met with flutist Jorge Pardo who used to play with Paco de Lucia, along with other musicians, and we loosely agreed that he could record some songs Photo: TASR with me, Rothenstein said at the launch of the album on March 14. Unfortunately, it did not work out as he was busy, but I had already prepared some tunes and so we decided to record them on an album. The launch involved not just Godfathers, jazzman Peter Lipa and producer Peter Stankovský, who launched the album into life but also Matúš Jakabčic of the state Music Fund, which also supported the release of the album. Jakabčic is Rothenstein s former professor and he wished all the best for perhaps Slovakia s only saxophonist who consistently focuses on baritone saxophone. Slovak trumpeter Martin Ďurdina was also supposed to play on this album, but died last summer. One piece of the selection, Maurice Ravel s Kaddish, is dedicated to him and also to Rothenstein s late uncle Jaro Tonyk. The album was meant to be a little in the Amy Winehouse style and Andre Antunes was logistically the closest he lives in Ireland and he used to play with her, Rothenstein told The Slovak Spectator. So we invited him and he accepted. The baritone saxophonist admitted that the original plan was different, but the death of Ďurdina changed things, and in the end there are just two pieces composed by Rothenstein himself, the eponymous Rio Danubio, and Bebe Rebe (dedicated to his small daughter); while the Kaddish is a step more into the classical music realm, while also a tribute to the late musician. Rothenstein said about his plans that there are stints planned with Michal Motýľ Tentet, CZ/SK Big Band of Matúš Jakabčic. Apart from jazz, a more pop oriented project is being prepared with Irish song-writers (but without more specific details) and Rothenstein also plays in the Lento ad Astra band with Zita Slavíčková classical music impressionist arranged for baritone saxophone. Rio Danubio is also one of the 13 nominations for the Esprit Award for Slovak jazz musicians. Esprit Awards will be handed out on International Jazz Day, April 30. By Zuzana Vilikovská Febiofest shows films, launches a Hungarian western THE INTERNATIONAL film festival Febiofest, which takes place in both successor countries of Czechoslovakia, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, ran for just a week in Bratislava but it was rich in events. At its opening in the Slovak capital, the annual awards of the Association of Slovak Film Clubs (ASFK) were announced to US actor Isaach Bankolé who plays in a western titled Mirage that launched the festival and to Slovak scriptwriter and director Eduard Grečner. The best club (meaning art) film for 2014 was the Polish movie Ida and the best club cinema was Lumiere in Bratislava, the TASR newswire wrote. More awards were given in the competition for short films made in the Visegrad Four (V4) countries Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary as well as in Belarus. The international jury of three members chose the Polish feature film Milky Brother by Vahran Mchitarjan as the winner while several other movies, including Czech and Slovak ones, were selected for other awards from among the total of 24 films. After the week of showings in the capital (between March 20 and 26) when more than 100 movies were screened in 12 sections, the 22nd year of the festival moved to other Slovak cities and towns: Trenčín, Levice, Košice, Prešov, Martin, Kežmarok, Trnava, Prievidza and Banská Bystrica. Within Febiofest, Works in Progress were also presented, including those by renowned directors or those which have already received awards and honorary mentions at festivals abroad. Three of them Koza (directed by Ivan Ostrochovský), Eva Nova (Marko Škop) and Sedem zhavranelých bratov (Allice Nelis) will be released in 2015 while others need more time before they arrive at cinemas. The screening of the Hungarian movie Mirage on March 20 was attended not only by director Szabolcs Hajdu but also by its prominent cast, Hollywood actor Isaach de Bankolé (a favourite actor of director Jim Jarmusch) who plays alongside a mostly Hungarian cast including eight Slovak actors who speak Hungarian, such as Attila Mokos, Adam Mihál and others. The co-producer, Matyás Prikler, also hails from Slovakia. Mirage tells the story of an African footballer (de Bankolé) who is searching for a job and finds himself in the Hungarian countryside, at one of the farms where people are forced to work like modern slaves, often falling prey to human traffickers and international criminals who had taken over the emptied farms after the economic crisis. Slovak audiences can see the unusual, modern central- European western currently running in several cinemas, for instance at the Lumiere in Bratislava, as well as in Prešov, Žilina and elsewhere. Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská Easter celebrated traditionally, by re-enactment or by record EASTER is quite a popular and well-observed holiday in Slovakia, but ways to stress its importance, or to share its message with others, can vary a great deal. In the eastern-slovak city of Prešov, there is a thriving tradition of re-enactment, with the Last Supper performed on April 1 in front of the Concathedral of St Nicolaus at 17:00. Two days later, on Good Friday, the Live Way of the Cross starts at 10:00, with 14 stops. The city hall informed the SITA newswire that 30 volunteers participated in the performances of the last days of Jesus Christ. In the previous year, around 4,000 people came to watch the authentic re-telling of the events surrounding the Easter period. In the High Tatras, an Easter Town will appear: in Nový Smokovec, a centre of traditional crafts, folk performances, competitions and regional gastronomy will be built, striving also to make a new record in the number of Easter eggs hung on the Tatra Easter tree, the TASR newswire informed. In April 4, from 12:00; folk music, entertainers and events for children will attract locals and tourists to this mountain spa site, situated about five minutes walk from the Starý Smokovec railway station. Bardejov, another town in eastern Slovakia, has the biggest hand-decorated Easter egg in all of Slovakia it has a diameter of 411 centimetres and is 213 centimetres tall. Made of Styrofoam, construction glue and façade plaster, it was decorated by 20 children from two elite classes of the Komenský Elementary School in Bardejov. The town received a certificate for the record egg, according to TASR. On March 27, a total of 420 children came to the central Radničné (Town-hall) Square, bringing with them traditionally decorated eggs and hanged them on nearby trees, close to the giant egg which is placed in a big wicker nest to be lighted at night. The Bardejov Easter decorations can be seen until April 13. Compiled by

19 Slovakia s forest epoch CULTURE April 6 19, Western SLOVAKIA Bratislava n FILM: In Memoriam: Peter Pišťanek The movies shot based on works of the recently deceased Slovak writer Peter Pišťanek will be screened in the Lumiere cinema, with the Muzika / Music film (2007, directed by Juraj Nvota) screened with English subtitles. Starts: April 2, 18:00; Lumiere cinema, Špitálska 4. Admission: 3-4. More info: EVENTS COUNTRYWIDE IN THE first centuries of the Middle Ages, Europe was still covered by dense forests. The first more compact settlements were established through laborious logging that could have lasted for decades before a town came to exist. On Slovak territory, forests remained for much longer than in other parts of Europe partially because of its location outside the main European events, and also the mountainous terrain. Thus, it is no surprise that in this landscape of forests and mountains, people continued to engage in logging and charcoal burning. Also in the wilderness of the Low Tatras, several lumberjacks hamlets were built. However, their story was quite specific and they were in the hinterland of a big mining city, Banská Bystrica. Sometime between 1401 and 1550, metallurgical town of Jelenec appeared. The staff of the local iron mill also lived in Jelenec. The iron mill later ceased to exist, and the direct successor of Jelenec became, with all probability, the hamlet of Dolný Jelenec which we can see in this period postcard dating back to the 1900s. In the course of the 17th century, more lumberjack settlements came to exist in the nearby valleys: Horný Jelenec, Rybie, Prašnica, Haliar, and one century later also Valentová and Bachlačka. Along these hamlets, an ancient road led to the region of Liptov however, there are few traces left of it these days. In this picturesque postcard, we can see under the Hungarian name Alsó Szarvas (Dolný Jelenec) also Zólyomvármegye Zvolenská župa, or the Zvolen Region. It is really remarkable how strong regional identity was until recently. By Branislav Chovan Slovak films shown in English THE WHOLE month of April will be dedicated to Slovak films screened in the Lumiere film club in downtown Bratislava. The Week of Slovak Film will be a retrospect of a selection of 22 long films - both feature and documentaries, short- and medium-length films made in the course of 2014; including panel debates and workshops. The first year of this event will take place betweenapril13and19. The event was establishedwiththegoalinmindto fill the blank space between the biggest events and to organise a review which can each year follow the film production in Slovakia, president of the Slovak Film and Television Academy (SFTA) which organises the event, Marek Leščák, said. He added thattheeffortistomakespace for professional evaluation of the production and a debate between theoreticians, filmmakers and viewers. The ultimate goal is to form the Week of Slovak Film as a representative display, complete with accompanying events HISTORY TALKS the culmination of which shall be already next year the awarding of the national film prize Sun in the Net, Leščák concluded. The idea has been shared for some time, but the final decision was made after the new president (Leščák) and new chairmanship of the SFTA were elected last autumn: director Martin Šulík and documentary-maker Martin Remo. Recently, the situation in Slovak cinematography has changed a lot, Martin Šulík said.... Despite the situation in film-making having stabilised, it seems that filmmakers fail to use the international achievements to lure Slovak visitors to cinemas. This event will be preceded by the Viewers and Festival Hits, a selection of the 17 most successful Slovak movies of all genres from the last five years; that are were seen by at least 50,000 viewers or won prizes at international festivals. The Hits will be also screened in Lumiere in Špitálska 4, between April1and12. We decided to focus the warm-up fortnight of the event to the five years preceding 2014, Pavel Smejkal of the programme team revealed. The chart of successful films is topped by the movie Bathory (directed by Juraj Jakubisko), followed by Slovak-Polish coproduction Jánošík The True History, and other feature movies, as well as a very successful documentary about the very popular ice-hockey player Pavol Demitra, called 38. Features and documentary films are equally represented, Smejkal added. Already the film shown on April 3, Miracle / Zázrak by Juraj Lehotský, has English subtitles as do many more of the list (including Bathory). It is advisable to check in the programme or on the website of Lumiere cinema or at AT after the movie means it will be screened with English subtitles. Tickets cost 3-4 for April 1-12 and 1 for the Week of Slovak Films. CompiledbyZuzanaVilikovská Bratislava n PARTY: Moustache Party Internationals Bratislava, striving to bring together foreigners staying or living in Bratislava, is organising a party focused on the phenomenon of the moustache, inviting visitors to bring along a moustache, fake or real. Starts: April 9, 22:00-4:00; The Club Bratislava, Rybné Square 1. More info: 113; info@internationals.sk. Bratislava n MUSICAL: Jesus Christ Superstar The legendary musical with mystic, religious and symbolic themes is now performed by stars of the Slovak scene Patrik Vykočil, Ján Slezák, Ivan Tásler and his IMT Smile, Katarína Hasprová, Nela Pocisková and others. Directed by Ján Ďurovčík. Starts: April 8, 9, 12, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 19:00; Tower Stage theatre, Pribinova 25. Admission: 29. Tel: 02/ ; Bratislava n LIVE MUSIC: Nneka German-Nigerian singer soul, hip-hop returns to Bratislava to present her fourth album, My Fairy Tales. Starts: April 15, 21:00; Ateliér Babylon, SNP Square 14. Admission: Tel: 02/ ; Bratislava n BALLET/PREMIERE: Le Corsaire Adolphe Charles Adam The ballet, written by Jules- Henri Vernoy de Saint- Georges, and composed by Adam is a masterpiece of the Romantic era of ballet; choreographed by Jospeh Mazilier and connected with the heyday of classical Russian ballet. The version to be premiered in the Slovak National Theatre is inspired by the version of legendary Marius Petipa, while staged by Vasily Medvedev. Starts: April 16 (11:00), 17-18, 19:00; new SND building, Pribinova 17. Admission: Tel: 02/ ; Bratislava n PARTY/INTERNATIONAL: The Internations network organises monthly parties and ice-breaking activities for foreigners new to the city, or the country. Starts: April 17, 18:00; The Taste Wine Bar, Laurinská 8. Admission: 8. More info: MIKE Parker s Trio / Unified Theory - Within a bigger tour, Mike Parker Trio combines jazz, rock, classical music and avant-garde into a specific, typical sound. Mike Parker on double bass is accompanied by Frank Parker (drums) and Polish Bartek Plucnal (saxophone). On April 4, at 21:00, they will play at the Tabačka KulturFabrik, Gorkého 2. Other concerts include one in the Humbook club in Bardejov (April 2) and in the Wave club in Prešov (April 3). Tickets for Košice cost 4 and can be purchased through More information at Photo: Courtesy of M. Parker DELILAH, with her two-times postponed Bratislava concert,will finally perform on April 11 at 21:00 in Majestic Music Club in Karpatská 2; her first time in Slovakia. The British singer (dubstep, neo-soul) whose popularity is on the rise will present her current, second album. Ticketscost 23(inadvance) to 27( More information can be found at Photo: Courtesy of Orepole Bratislava n PHOTO EXHIBITION: Takí ako my / Just Like Us The exhibition of talented young Roma photographers from Vtáčkovce can be seen in the capital s University Library in April, within the Roma learning to Fly project, also supported by other initiatives. From there, it then moves on to Banská Bystrica and Košice. Open: April 8-April 29, Exhibition Hall of the University Library, Michalská 1. Tel: 02/ ; Central SLOVAKIA Žilina n CLASSICAL MUSIC: Allegretto Žilina festival of classical music celebrates 25 and offers four concerts between April 13 and 18; with the opening one bringing Slovak soprano Andrea Vizvári and Czech violinist Josef Špaček with Janáček Philharmonic from Ostrava, conducted by Hungarian Gergely Madaras. Starts: April 13, 19:00 Fatra House of Arts, Dolný Val 47. Admission: 4-9. More info: 02 / ; Banská Bystrica n ROMA EVENT: Balvareskle čavore The Children of Wind The International Roma Day is commemorated in the Záhrada Independent Centre of Culture by screening movies, a discussion, a concert by Cool Band Trio Plus, Maroš Kováč (accordion), Vladimír Berky (guitar), Jozef Gorči (bass, double bass), and Janka Tóthová (vocals). Starts: April 8, 10:00-22:00; Záhrada Centre of Independent Culture (CNK) in SNP Square 16 (Beniczkého Passage). More info: Eastern SLOVAKIA High Tatras n EASTER/SKIING: Funny Easter Skiing in seasonal masks will highlight the Easter events in the High Tatras, including folk music and old traditions (water pouring, beating of women). Starts: April 5, 10:00-16:00; Štrbské Pleso. More info: By Zuzana Vilikovská NAME DAY APRIL 2015 Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday Irena Zoltán Albert Milena Igor Július Estera April 6 April 7 April 8 April 9 April 10 April 11 April 12 Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday Aleš Justína Fedor Dana Rudolf Valér Jela Danica April 13 April 14 April 15 April 16 April 17 April 18 April 19 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 fl owers, and to wish them všetko najlepšie k meninám (Happy name day).

20 12 April 6 19, 2015 FEATURE For exercises linked to the Spectator College programme please visit SPECTATOR COLLEGE Lesson 15 Culture and Art Spectator College is a programme to support the study and teaching of English in Slovakia, as well as to inspire interest in important public issues among young people. The project was created by The Slovak Spectator and the Petit Academy Foundation. Please see our online Spectator College section at for articles, glossaries and tips for exercises which can be used in English lessons. access prístup aesthetic estetický animation animačný approach prístup art work umelecké dielo artist umelec availability dostupnosť collection zbierka commonplace bežná súčasť compose skladať sa connectivity konektivita, súvislosť contemporary súčasný content obsah contribution príspevok creativity tvorivosť curricula školské osnovy design naplánovať discovery objav disused nepoužívaný draw pritiahnuť effort snaha enable umožniť establishment vytvorenie evaluation hodnotenie event udalosť evidence dôkaz evoke vyvolať exhibit vystaviť; exponát facility zariadenie familiarise oboznámiť sa fine art výtvarné umenie gallery educator galerijný pedagóg get in touch dostať sa do styku handle zvládnuť heat exchanger station Glossary výmenník tepla chemistry chémia impact vplyv in advance vopred innovative priekopnícky issue vydať jewellery šperky large-scale široký, vo veľkom meradle lasting stály, trvalý lecturer lector liquid tekutý multiple početný muse múza objective cieľ oeuvre dielo opinion názor opportunity príležitosť participation účasť performance predstavenie piece dielo praise chváliť recurring opakujúci sa regeneration obnovenie reproduction kópia requirement požiadavka resident obyvateľ, domáci reveal odhaliť scope záber, rámec share zdieľať schoolchild školák spirit duch sustain udržať theatre divadlo timetable harmonogram topic téma vibrancy vitalita, živosť weary ustatý Galleries connecting kids with art BY RADKA MINARECHOVÁ Galleries enable children to learn more about art. CHILDREN have multiple opportunities to directly learn about art. Teachers sometimes take their classes to visit galleries where students get in touch with original art. The aim of the special programmes, designed by galleries across Slovakia, is not only to raise the interest of young people in art, but also to teach them to think critically and express their own opinions on what they see in the picture, teachers and gallery educators say. It is important to find ways of drawing youth and to reveal the beauties of fine arts, culture, and to messages hidden in colours, forms, and the lives of creative spirits from every era, art teacher Miloš Kmeť from the school in Novohradská Street in Bratislava told The Slovak Spectator. Though some programmes by galleries for schools were established long ago, they have gradually developed and, in some cases, they are designed based on the individual requirements of schools, galleries addressed by The Slovak Spectator said. They agree that these kinds of activities bring art closer to the children and teach them to better understand their meaning. Educating about art and for art enables children to better read the visual language, Vladislav Malast, gallery educator from the Slovak National Gallery (SNG), told The Slovak Spectator. Special programmes for children, adults and seniors are now considered commonplace for a modern gallery as this not only brings life to its spaces but is also a cheap investment for forming visitors of every age, said artist and jewellery designer Ivana Poruban Santová, 27, from Trenčianska Teplá. In some countries they have even become part of the educational process, Poruban Santová told The Slovak Spectator. Tailor-made programmes Gallery pedagogy is one of the bridges which connect the exhibited work, author and visitor to the gallery, Luboš Hamaj from the Gallery of M. A. Bazovský in Trenčín told The Slovak Spectator. The special programmes for schools in this Trenčín gallery date back to the 1980s. Currently, it organises about 220 special events connecting the exhibitions with creative activities every year, focusing not only on schoolchildren, but also on adults and seniors. In the SNG, schools can choose from programmes based on exhibitions, topics and age. Sometimes the topics are connected also with the school subjects, which is welcomed by teachers, Malast explained. One of the recent exhibitions is called the Liquid Muse, which has links to chemistry. They also offer programmes focusing on theatre performances and creative readings. In the Bratislava City Gallery (GMB), the programmes try to offer a broader context through creating actual art pieces. They are composed of two parts: the theoretical part and a creative workshop, explained GMB gallery educator Petra Baslíková. GMB also organises the national education programme titled Art from Near for pupils aged which has already been attended by more than 330 schools. It works in a way that the gallery issues a catalogue with seven reproductions of works from its collections and teaching materials which it then sends to schools. The children then draw the pictures in their own way and send them back. The best pictures are exhibited alongside the originals. The project s idea is interesting as well as the methodological approach, said Kmeť, who together with his students has attended the programme twice. Children perceived it as part of their education, he said, the only difference was that they had a feeling they were part of something bigger. The programmes in the East Slovak Gallery (VSG), which started being systematically organised in 2009, are connected to particular actual exhibitions. They are very specific and depend on the concept of the exhibition or the art technique the artist used, explained VSG gallery educator Viera Dandárová. The schools choose from various activities and search mostly for the programmes where children can actively participate, she added. Also the Nitra Gallery offers a variety of educational activities, from lectures focused on interpretation of the oeuvres, short animations, workshops lasting two hours and also education programmes. All activities are focused on three aims: the concept of exhibition and specifics of exhibits, the formal side of art, and pupils own works inspired by the philosophy and concept of the selected piece from a contemporary exhibition, Elena Tarábková of the gallery explained. Visitors to the Stanica- Žilina Záriečie can also find special events for schools, started in 2006, which focus on evoking perception of schoolchildren towards art, meaning that they show some work to children and wait for their response, said Hana Hudovičová Lukšů, responsible for programmes for children, families and schools. We let children reveal and share their discoveries among one another, she told The Slovak Spectator, adding that their experience shows that together, and with help from lecturers, they can also decode the more difficult concepts of a work of art without knowing about them in advance. They also offer special language classes in English at which they discuss the exhibition, she added. Art impacts personality The galleries projects help pupil to familiarise themselves directly with art, says Dagmar Kochanová, art class teacher from the primary school at Benkova street in Nitra. She sometimes visits exhibitions with students and has also attended some special programmes. Pupils should attend similar activities so their aesthetic perception of the world develops more intensively and they learn more about our culture, she told The Slovak Spectator. To read the whole article, please go to EC praises Košice for 2013 culture capital project THE EUROPEAN Commission has praised Košice for the city s handlingoftheeuropeancapitalofculture(ecoc) 2013project. TheeasternSlovakcitysharedthetitlewithFrenchMarseille. In its evaluation report issued in the beginning of March, the EC highlighted the highly innovative programme of Košice during the whole year, especially regarding its scope and content, with experimental art forms and creativity in its broader sense strongly represented, Culture Ministry spokesman Jozef Bednár said, as quotedbythetasrnewswire. Košice s programme made a contribution to many of the defined European Union level objectives for the ECOC, especially in terms of strengthening the capacity of the cultural and creative sectors and their connectivity, as well as access to and participation in culture by a broad cross-section of residents. This was possible thanks in large part to investments in SPOTs, a programme featuring the regeneration of a number of unused heat exchange stations and cultural events in Košice s neighbourhoods, other cultural facilitiesandthenumberoflarge-scalepublicevents, thereportreads. TheECOCtitlealsopositivelyimpactedtourism. The number of nights spent in Košice increased by 10 percent in2013ascomparedto2012, Bednársaid, asquotedbytasr. TheECalsopraisedKošiceforitsefforttosustaintheprojects. Evidence of lasting improvements in the cultural vibrancy of cities is perhaps strongest in the case of Košice, thanks to the numbers of continuing projects and the establishment of a new timetableofrecurringeventsandfestivals, thereportstates. CompiledbySpectatorstaff One of the SPOTs projects in Košice. Photo: J. Liptáková