Economy delivers upbeat numbers

METAPHORS like ‘recovering pa-tient’ or ‘convalescent Tatra tiger’need no longer be employed whendescribing Slovakia’s economy: ithas almost completely made up forthe losses incurred during the glob-al economic downturn, accordingto the Slovak Ministry of Finance.The ministry was responding to thelatest flash estimate of growth inthe country’s gross domesticproduct (GDP) for the last quarter of

2010 as well as for the whole of lastyear, as reported by the nationalstatistics authority.

Market watchers said Slovakiaowes its upbeat numbers to recov-ery in its largest trading partners,noting that household consump-tion has not completely shaken offthe switch to saving induced bythe crisis.

The economy grew by 4 percentyear-on-year in 2010, while GDPgrew 3.5 percent in the finalquarter of 2010 year-on-year, theSlovak Statistics Office reported onFebruary 15. In 2009, when theglobal downturn took its main tollon Slovakia, the economy contrac-ted by 4.7 percent.

The last quarter’s 3.5-percentgrowth rate was the slowest pace ofall the quarters of last year: in thethird quarter GDP grew at 3.8 per-cent; in the second quarter at 4.2 per-cent, while the rate for the first threemonths was 4.7 percent year-on-year.The statistics authority will producea more detailed estimate on March 3.

The ministry had some rosy pre-dictions too for the upcoming peri-od: GDP will surpass the level of thepre-crisis boom as early as the cur-rent quarter, it predicted.

“Slovakia has one of the fastestgrowing economies,” the ministrysaid in a release.

See PACE pg 4

Vol. 17, No. 7 Monday, February 21, 2011 - Sunday, February 27, 2011

FOCUSof this issue

On sale nowOn sale now FOCUSof this issue

INNOVATION

SSELECT FOREX RATES€ benchmark as of February 17

CANADA CAD 1.33 CZECH REP. CZK 24.33RUSSIA RUB 39.71GREAT BRITAIN GBP 0.85

HUNGARY HUF 269.25JAPAN JPY 113.39POLAND PLN 3.91USA USD 1.36

NEWS

Deputy minister goesMartin Chren, state secret-ary at the Ministry of Eco-nomy, unexpectedly quit onFebruary 17 . He denied hismove was linked to anycross-party deal.

pg 2

Deaflympics disgraceThe 17th Winter DeaflympicGames, which were sup-posed to take place in theHigh Tatras this month,were cancelled on February11 amid confusion andclaims of fraud.

pg 9

OPINION

Play-acting MPSIgor Matovič's antics sincebecoming an MP suggest hedoesn't quite know wherehe is going – and they castserious doubt on his abilityto achieve the real changehe says he wants.

pg 5

BUSINESS FOCUS

Innovation for growthBusinesses, academics andthe government all agreethat innovation is essentialif Slovakia is to prosper.But how to actually movebeyond just lofty declara-tions?

pg 6

Welcoming new ideasSteelmakers, carmakersand oil refiners tell TheSlovak Spectator how theirfirms encourage employ-ees to innovate – and savetime and money in theprocess.

pg 7

CULTURE

Nurturing the rootletsThe Divé maky (Wild Pop-pies) project was born fiveyears ago to help youngRoma children to furtherdevelop their talents. It isstill going strong.

pg 11

Seven PMsmeet in

Bratislava

BELARUS, energy security and food priceswere the leading topics of a summit ofVisegrad Group (V4) prime ministerswhich took place in Bratislava on Febru-ary 15 – exactly 20 years after the groupingwas established in the northern Hungari-an town of Visegrad. Slovakia currentlyholds the presidency of the organisation.German chancellor Angela Merkel wasamong other regional leaders who atten-ded the summit and congratulated thefour V4 members.

The Visegrad Group, now consisting ofPoland, Hungary, the Czech Republic andSlovakia (the latter two joined the V4 asCzechoslovakia), has always engaged inissues of democracy and freedom, notonly in member countries but also in theneighbourhood, Merkel said in her ad-dress to journalists after the summit,adding that human rights and individualfreedoms have always been at the core ofV4 cooperation.

“This grouping, which has become apart of Europe, reminds us that freedom isnot something obvious that you can takefor granted, but that it is something youneed to fight for every day and defend,”Merkel said.

See V4 pg 3

Martin Chren announced his resignation as state secretary at the Economy Minister on February 17. He will take up aseat in parliament for the Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) party. Photo: Sme -Vladimír Šimíček

BY MICHAELA TERENZANISpectator staff

Coalition keeps itsmajority, for now

THE HATCHET has been buried fornow and the centre-right ruling co-alition will keep its fragile majorityin parliament. The government’sstability was put in doubt afterFreedom and Solidarity (SaS) partyexpelled Igor Matovič, the informalleader of the Ordinary People fac-tion, from the SaS caucus for votingin line with the opposition Smerparty on February 10.

However, on February 16 JozefViskupič, Erika Jurinová and MartinFecko, the remaining three mem-bers of the four-member factionwhich made it into the parliament

on SaS’ candidate list in 2010, an-nounced that they would continueto support the ruling coalition aslong as Matovič does not establishhis own political party.

The Ordinary People thus sus-tained the ruling coalition’s narrowmajority, giving it 77 out of 150 MPsin parliament. Matovič is the

second MP to become independent,following the departure in Januaryof Andrej Ďurkovský from theChristian Democratic Movement(KDH) caucus.

Prime Minister Iveta Radičovácalled the move by the three a “re-sponsible decision” adding thattheir agreement creates room notonly for political stability but also“general stability within society”,which according to her is crucial forsociety to recover from the econom-ic downturn.

See FACTION pg 2

BY BEATA BALOGOVÁSpectator staff

Januaryprice rise

at 3 percent

THE DAYS when governments anxiouslymonitor rising prices for goods and ser-vices in their countries have returned. In-flationary pressures were almost nonex-istent in most countries during the globaleconomic downturn but recent pricejumps for several commodities, particu-larly foodstuffs, and rising oil prices aswell as higher taxes to reduce public defi-cits have raised concerns about higher in-flation in 2011.

Prices in Slovakia in January were 3percent higher than January last year, up1.9 percent percentage points compared toDecember.

Predictably, Slovakia’s Ministry of Fin-ance and Smer, the leading oppositionparty, put markedly different interpreta-tions on the increase in consumer prices.

See RATE pg 4

BY BEATA BALOGOVÁSpectator staff

BY BEATA BALOGOVÁSpectator staff

Smer tops latest opinion poll

THE CURRENT ruling coali-tion would not have beenable to form a government ifparliamentary elections hadbeen held in early February,according to a political sur-vey carried out by the Focuspolling agency.

Smer, currently thelargest opposition party inparliament, attracted 43.2percent of preferences in thepoll, followed by the SlovakDemocratic and ChristianUnion (SDKÚ) with 15.2 per-cent and the ChristianDemocratic Movement(KDH) with 10.2 percent.Freedom and Solidarity (SaS)received 9.1 percent, while 6percent of respondents said

they would vote for Most-Híd. The Slovak NationalParty (SNS) would have beenthe only other party to makeit to into parliament, with5.4-percent support.

Based on the poll results,Smer would get 73 seats inparliament, very close to the76 needed for a majority inthe 150-seat chamber, whilethe SDKÚ would get 26 seats,the KDH 17, SaS 15, Most-Híd10 and the SNS nine.

The survey found that19.3 percent of those polledwould not participate inan election and 12.9 per-cent were undecided or didnot say whether theywould vote.

President undergoes hip surgery

PRESIDENT Ivan Gašparovičunderwent hip surgery onFebruary 14. The operationwas a standard procedurewithout any complications.

“After surgery the pres-ident smiled and claimed hehad no pain,” Juraj Šimko,the head of the trauma sur-gery department at LadislavDérer University Hospitalin Bratislava, told the SITAnewswire.

The operation took 68minutes and the head of

state woke up 10 minutesafter the procedure wascompleted. Gašparovič wasexpected to remain in hos-pital for a week, SITA re-ported.

In January, his spokes-person Marek Trubač saidthat the president had exper-ienced hip problems for sev-eral years. This was the reas-on why he gave up sport, buthe has said he would behappy to start playing tennisagain after the surgery.

Slovakia records 339 HIV cases

IN THE last 25 years of HIVmonitoring in Slovakia, 339cases of HIV-positive peoplewere recorded, with 20 casesbeing added to the statisticsin 2010. Clinical symptoms ofAIDS developed in 57 of thoseinfected and 37 people died ofAIDS in Slovakia.

The unofficial numbers,however, are estimated tobe much higher than the of-ficial statistics recorded inthe report on the nationalHIV/AIDS prevention pro-gramme discussed by the

cabinet at its February 16session.

According to the officialreport, the majority of thoseinfected are men, and mostare city dwellers. BratislavaRegion recorded the highestnumber of infections, theSITA newswire reported.

Treatment for HIV-posit-ive patients is available inBratislava, Banská Bystricaand Košice. HIV testing iscarried out by the NationalReference Centre forHIV/AIDS Prevention.

Deputy minister stepsdown unexpectedly

IN A SURPRISE move, MartinChren, the state secretary – i.e.deputy minister – at Slovakia’sMinistry of Economy, an-nounced on February 17 thathe would quit his post andtake up a seat in parliament.

Chren, a nominee of theFreedom and Solidarity (SaS)party who last year faced in-tense media pressure overgovernment deals made byHayek Consulting, a companythat he formerly co-owned,said that his decision to leavewas entirely his own and thathe had neither been pushednor forced out by anyone else.

“My decision has not beencaused by any pseudo-case orcase,” Chren said at a pressconference on February 17. “Iwant to prove that I am notglued to any chair.”

Chren, who will be re-called officially in earlyMarch, said he would contin-ue serving as an advisor toEconomy Minister JurajMiškov and would receive noremuneration for his services.Chren also said that over thepast seven months as statesecretary he had not made anydecision that could have bene-fitted him personally.

In the light of recent criti-cism of golden parachutespaid to top managers at state-run enterprises, Chren was atpains to point out that theministry was obliged by lawto pay him a severance pay-ment of around €3,600. Hepledged to give the money tocharity.

Earlier on February 17, Ig-or Matovič of the OrdinaryPeople faction of SaS wasquick to dismiss speculationthat Chren’s departure was inany way linked to an agree-ment that his faction hadstruck with SaS, insisting

that no such demand was puton the table.

Chren too dismissed thespeculation by saying that “noagreement with any politicalparty or politician” is behindhis departure from the post.

Yet Chren did leave someroom for speculation by offer-ing no answer to a questionabout whether health issueslay behind his decision. Hemerely said he would not re-spond because it was a sensit-ive issue, the SITA newswirereported.

See CHREN pg 5

FACTION: MP was 'like a loose cannon'Continued from pg 1

“It is not always possible to avoidpolitical clashes, but these must nothinder real political decisions andsolutions,” Radičová said, as quoted bythe SITA newswire.

Ordinary People and SaS agreed thatif Matovič establishes his own party, thethree deputies will be allowed to leavewithout having to return their mandateto SaS. Matovič meanwhile suggestedthat his party might emerge some timenext year. The next general election isnot due until 2014.

The conflict

After Matovič was expelled from theSaS deputy faction he declared that hewas the victim and that the coalitionhad violated its agreements with him.However, on February 16, SaS chairmanRichard Sulík said that the two of themhad buried the hatchet and that theirpersonal relationship was fine.

“What has been said was already saidand I do not intend to return to that,” saidMatovič, who had exchanged some strongwords with Sulík after his expulsion.

Matovič, along with RadoslavProcházka, a KDH deputy, on February10 supported a draft amendment to theState Citizenship Act proposed by theopposition Smer party. The ruling coali-tion had intended to partly reversechanges that the former government,led by Smer leader Robert Fico, had madeto the law in response to a change in thelaw of neighbouring Hungary whichmade it easier for ethnic Hungarians toacquire Hungarian citizenship. Around10 percent of Slovak citizens speak Hun-garian as a first language.

The coalition proposal was sub-sequently dropped and the Smer propos-al was also defeated, meaning the Fico-era law remains in force.

Béla Bugár, the leader of Most-Híd,the coalition party which has pushedhardest for reform of the law, respondedto Matovič’s action and the failure of thecoalition draft immediately, announcingthat his party would not support anyother coalition draft laws until the situ-ation had been clarified. Matovič at firstblamed Bugár for his expulsion from SaSbut then claimed that he had in factbeen deceived and led to believe that hisvote for the Smer draft was covered byhis agreement with Sulík.

Sulík said that the two of them hadagreed that Matovič would vote for his

own amendment to the coalition pro-posal drafted by Most-Híd and thatwhen it was passed Bugár would with-draw the proposal to allow for furthernegotiations.

“There was no agreement overMatovič’s vote in favour of the Smerdraft,” Sulík said, as quoted by the Smedaily.

Matovič said that he personally toldSulík that he would vote for the Smerdraft, but that the other three membersof the Ordinary People faction wouldrefrain from voting, meaning thatFico’s party’s proposal would be de-feated. Sulík, according to Matovič, saidthat he and the coalition accepted thissolution, Sme reported.

Matovič's departure always

likely, say observers

The expulsion of Matovič from theSaS deputy faction did not come as asurprise to observers.

“The overall profile of Igor Matovičas an unpredictable politician andmember of the deputy faction could nolonger be tolerated and his expulsionwas in some ways natural,” said GrigorijMesežnikov, a political analyst and pres-ident of the Institute for Public Affairs(IVO) think tank. “The way Matovičspoke to the media and treated his owncolleagues was very non-standard.”

In terms of the rules of his owndeputy caucus as well as politicalparties in general he has severaltimes displayed a lack of loyalty,Mesežnikov said.

To political scientist Miroslav Kusýexpulsion seemed unavoidable since “MrMatovič behaved like a loose cannon”.

“He did not respect internal partyagreements,” Kusý told The Slovak Spec-tator. “While it is true that a deputyshould be guided by his conscience,[Matovič] in fact accepted an obligationto respect certain agreements withinthe ruling coalition after he made it intoparliament on the back of SaS. He hasviolated those agreements.”

Kusý said that Matovič’s promisesare built on a very unstable foundationbecause if he continues to proceed inthis way and prefers his subjectivejudgment over any agreement with theruling coalition, then his promises canbe broken at any time because he cansimply say: ‘based on my conscience Icannot support the coalition'.

Matovič has expressed his opposi-tion to the way political power in Slov-akia is channelled through parties. Inan interview for the Sme.sk website hesuggested that on average each MP hasat least 10 nominees in state firms andinstitutions, which buys MPs’ loyaltyand glues the coalition together. Aftercriticism from fellow coalition MPs helater amended his statement, but onlyto say that the average is more likelyclose to 20 nominees.

After his expulsion Matovič wentfurther, saying that he was giving theruling coalition until March to publish alist of their nominees to state positionsand that if they failed he would goahead and publish details of all theparty nominations himself.

Igor Matovič (left) and Richard Sulík are no longer in the same team. Photo: TASR

2 NEWSFebruary 21 – 27, 2011

Galko alleges manipulation of report

DEFENCE Minister ĽubomírGalko, a Freedom and Solid-arity (SaS) nominee, has al-leged that the former man-agement of the ministrymanipulated what is knownas an annual complex evalu-ation report. The evaluationreport for the election yearof 2010 was altered, Galkotold journalists on February15, as reported by the SITAnewswire.

The report was preparedby the team of his prede-cessor, Smer party nomineeJaroslav Baška, and the mil-itary also contributed to it.

“Given that it was theelection year, all critical ob-servations made by theministry’s experts weredropped with the explana-tion that such an evalu-

ation report simply cannotbe issued in an electionyear,” Galko said, as quotedby SITA.

The minister now wantsto ask the army’s top brasswhy they did not talk aboutdelays in modernisation andplans as early as 2009-2010.The minister added that he isready to take action if hefinds out “that generals whowere supposed to display acertain level of personalcourage and personal re-sponsibility did not display itto that level”.

A new strategic evalu-ation of the ministry hasnow been prepared, SITA re-ported.

Compiled by Spectator Staff

from press reports

'Politicians should askus what we need'

‘LAGGING behind’ has becomea label that Slovak academia,with the exception of somehigh-level departments, willhave to go to some lengths toerase. Despite this year’s aus-terity budget, Slovakia’s cur-rent government says it is de-termined to lead Slovak uni-versities towards better re-search results and greatercompetitiveness in the inter-national environment. It isplanning yet another bigamendment to the HigherEducation Act, the fifteenth sofar. The Slovak Spectatorspoke to Libor Vozár, the rect-or of Constantine the Philo-sopher University in Nitra,who was elected as the head ofthe Slovak Rectors’ Confer-ence (SRK) in June 2010, aboutthe challenges that Slovakuniversities currently faceand his vision of the changesthey need to make.

The Slovak Spectator (TSS): Ithas been more than half ayear since the department ofeducation got a new minis-ter, Eugen Jurzyca. Are yousatisfied with the steps hehas taken so far in the area ofhigher education? What oth-er changes do you expecthim to make?

Libor Vozár (LV): I willdefinitely not evaluate theminister of education, science,research and sport. It’s not mytask, and I think that half ayear in such a post cannot ser-iously be evaluated anyway.I’d rather focus on my expect-ations from the minister, ormore generally from the gov-ernment and the parliament.Let me be a bit idealistic here.I’d welcome an altered ap-proach to universities. Itwould be helpful if politiciansasked us what we would needin order to be more competit-ive internationally and moreuseful for Slovakia. I’m awarethere is a need to deal with theimpact of the financial andeconomic crisis. Historyclearly shows that the periodof growth which usuallycomes after a crisis requireswell-prepared people and theapplication of more sophistic-ated approaches and techno-logies. From this viewpoint,universities are key, becausethey not only take part in edu-cating qualified employees forthe future, but also in gather-ing and transferring know-ledge. So I think that despitethe crisis the current circum-stances can be altered in fa-vour of universities.

TSS: Another amendment ofthe Higher Education Act isdue to be presented this

spring. What are your ex-pectations for it?

LV: I think the amendmentshould follow five main prin-ciples. First to strengthen qual-ity. In recent years quantityhas been preferred, but nowthat we already have a suffi-cient number of students anduniversities, the future lies inquality, mainly of educationand science.

Then international com-petitiveness needs to bestrengthened. We should focuson removing our systemic in-compatibilities and on foster-ing support for cooperationwith more advanced EU coun-tries. I think that the nationalheritage should be cultivatedin culture, arts and other tradi-tions, but a long-term cultiva-tion of holdovers in other areasis a burden for us.

The third principle shouldbe support for transparency. Ithink that fair and transparentrules and competition enablethe best to prosper and weedout those who cannot keeppace.

The fourth intention of theamendment should be tostrengthen the management ofuniversities and make it moretransparent. Slovak universit-ies have recently been evalu-ated by experts from theEuropean University Associ-ation, who stated that theyweren’t able to find out who ac-tually manages the universit-ies in Slovakia. Compared withthe standards in advancedEuropean countries, our in-ternal management structuresare not transparent. Autonomyin decision-making is not bal-anced by responsibility.

And the fifth principleshould be increasing effect-iveness and generally de-creasing bureaucracy. That issomething we all wish for, Ibelieve.

TSS: The education ministerhas announced ‘dramatic

changes’ in the system ofuniversity financing, whichhe has agreed with the SRK.Which of the changes doyou consider the most im-portant?

LV: Minister Jurzyca hasdecided that we will no longerpretend that results in sci-ence, such as winning moneyfrom scientific grants, or thenumber of PhD students, arean indicator of the quality ofeducation. He has decided tomove almost €70 millionfrom education to science. Iconsider this decision to beright and clear.

Considering the results ofthe comprehensive accredita-tion is equally important indistributing resources for sci-ence. Simplifying the proced-ure of distribution of subsidiesis also key. If the moneyshould be a tool of manage-ment, then everyone shouldbe able to understand the de-tails of the procedure.

The overall volume of fin-ancial resources remains aproblem, however. Universit-ies will have to deal withlowered budgets this year, andinvestment will be cut bymore than two thirds.

TSS: Under the new rules,the evaluation of highereducation institutions willdepend much more on thenumber of papers publishedin peer-reviewed journals.Do you agree with thischange? What impact will ithave on universities?

LV: It should be said thatthe times when we considereda local activity, for example adepartmental seminar andcollection of articles, a signi-ficant contribution to theworld’s science, are definitelygone. We are an EU member,and we participate in theEuropean Higher EducationArea and the European Re-search Area. Therefore wevalue as ‘world-class’ results

in science only if they are pub-lished in international period-icals or monographs, and fol-lowed and cited in biblio-graphical databases. In thiscontext the pressure to pub-lish in prestigious journals isprogressive, and if Slovak uni-versities adjust to it, it will beto the benefit of their quality.

Rectors, however, have re-servations about the fact thatfocus is being put on one data-base only, which experts saycovers only a selective part ofthe affected journals. Theperiod when we had accessonly to the databases of Cur-rent Contents is past, and it’snecessary to widen our atten-tion to other bibliographicaldatabases.

TSS: Plagiarism is currentlyperceived by the public asone of the biggest problemsof Slovak academia. How areyou trying to cope with it?

LV: Currently about70,000 bachelor's and master'stheses are written in Slovakiaevery year. The internetprovides a large amount ofeasy-to-copy information.Slovak higher education isstill based on memorising, aswe consider the system oftesting to be the primary toolto secure the quality of educa-tion. I think that we put aninappropriately low focus onstudents’ independent work.Therefore, copying and plagi-arism in final theses is natur-al for many reasons.

The quality of the finaltheses is secured by a systemin which every student – au-thor of a thesis – has his or herown supervisor, the thesis isevaluated by an opponent andthe author must defend it inperson in front of a testingcommission. Another controltool is comparing the finalthesis with the database of fi-nal theses deposited in thecentral register of finaltheses. This external controltool aims to be preventive,and in two years’ time, whenthe register contains a suffi-cient number of theses, it willbe very effective.

TSS: What is your opinionabout the new law whichorders all final theses to bepublished on the internet?

LV: Publishing the thesesonline is another externalcontrol and anti-plagiarismtool. If it doesn’t become atool of abuse, it could be verybeneficial. The useful side of itis that the theses will be easi-er to access, also for studypurposes. The drawback couldbe copying and potential ab-use of sensitive informationwhich the published thesesmight contain.

For the full version of thisinterview please see the Career

and Employment Guide 2011.

BY MICHAELATERENZANISpectator staff

Libor Vozár, president of the SRK. Photo: TASR

V4: Human rightsand food prices

Continued from pg 1

She praised the V4 coun-tries for pushing forward theagenda of the Eastern Part-nership, an initiative whichwas created during the Czechpresidency of the EU, andwhich remains a focus dur-ing the current Hungarianpresidency and is expected todo so in the subsequent Pol-ish presidency.

‘Living topics’ preferred

Apart from Merkel andthe V4 prime ministers –Slovakia’s Iveta Radičová,the Czech Republic’s PetrNečas, Hungary’s ViktorOrbán and Poland’s DonaldTusk – the summit was at-tended by Austria’s Chancel-lor Werner Faymann andUkraine’s Prime MinisterMykola Azarov.

Although the leaderswere scheduled to discusscurrent topics on theEuropean agenda in general,Radičová brought up a topicthat was not originally listedfor the summit, and askedthe leader to share their ex-periences with measures de-signed to address the finan-cial crisis.

According to Radičová,citizens are experiencing“frightening” increases inthe prices of food and en-ergy, and individual coun-tries are not able to solve thisproblem on their own – shenoted that even loweringVAT for food products hadnot helped to lower prices inPoland or Germany. The V4prime ministers proposedthat the European Councildeal with these topics at itssummit in March; they werebacked by their Austrian andGerman partners.

The V4 is currently in agood position to pushthrough its agenda withinthe EU since the union’spresidency is now occupiedby Hungary, and Poland willtake over next.

“We want to solve livingtopics, living problems,”Radičová said, commentingon the declaration that theV4 prime ministers signed.

Energy security was oneof the topics the prime min-isters mentioned as a prior-ity, especially because of theregion’s experience of

breaks in gas supplied fromRussia, most notably inJanuary 2009.

Call on Lukashenko

The most concrete out-come of the summit was astatement on the situation inBelarus, in which six of theprime ministers at the sum-mit expressed serious con-cerns about the Belarusianauthorities’ observation ofhuman rights in the country.

“We will continue toclosely follow the situationin Belarus and remain com-mitted to our policy of critic-al engagement, includingthrough dialogue and theEastern Partnership, condi-tional on respect for theprinciples of democracy, therule of law and humanrights,” their statement read.

Referring to AlexanderLukashenko’s re-election aspresident of Belarus inDecember last year as“fraudulent”, the six primeministers also called on theauthorities in Belarus toimmediately release all polit-ical prisoners and to rehabil-itate them, and to stop polit-ical repression and harass-ment of the opposition, in-dependent media and civilsociety. The presidentialelection was followed by awave of repression and theimprisonment of hundredsof opposition supporters.

“We are interested in co-operation with these coun-tries, and from this view-point I consider it importantthat we didn’t forget aboutone country that lies at theEU’s borders, and that isBelarus,” Czech Prime Minis-ter Petr Nečas said. “The clearsupport of six prime ministerof EU member states for thedemocratic opposition in Be-larus and its fight for humanrights is in my opinion animportant signal.”

Ukraine’s Prime MinisterAzarov did not join the de-claration.

“We can tell Lukashenkoeverything we think in aface-to-face talk,” he told theSme daily.

Ukraine has close tieswith Belarus, and if it hadsigned the statement thiswould have represented amajor success for Slovak dip-lomacy, Sme noted.

Angela Merkel and Iveta Radičová Photo: AP/TASR

3February 21 – 27, 2011NEWS

VW to invest €1 billion in Slovakia

VOLKSWAGEN Slovakia isplanning to invest €1 billionover the next five years intothe production of its cars aswell as components, theSITA newswire reported.

“In the next five yearswe will focus on new pro-duction technologies, ex-panding the production ofcars in the Bratislava plantand components in theMartin plant,” said AndreasTostmann, the director ofthe board of VolkswagenSlovakia, as quoted by SITA.“The volume of invest-ments will double in com-parison with the previousfive years.”

The technological in-vestments will include a dryparticle separator in thepaint department for theNew Small Family cars whichthe company said will reduceemissions by 90 percent andlower energy consumptionby up to 80 percent. Othernew technologies will in-clude an environmentally-friendly process for surfacetrimming of car body shells.

Volkswagen Slovakia hasinvested over €1.7 billionduring its nearly 20 years ofmanufacturing in Slovakiaand has produced over 2.5million vehicles across fivebrands, SITA wrote.

PACE: Surge in domestic consumption still awaitedContinued from pg 1

Yet the numbers brought neither shocks norsurprises to Slovakia’s community of marketwatchers, whose collective blood pressure didnot jump while inspecting GDP growth numbersover the past four quarters.

“The flash estimate of 3.5 percent has notsurprised us,” Eva Sadovská, analyst withPoštová Banka, told The Slovak Spectator,adding that she had expected growth of 3.6percent.

A deceleration in GDP growth was expectedin the last quarter of 2010 due to the basis effectfrom 2009, when in the final quarter the econom-ic contraction was at its slowest, Sadovská said.

Though detailed data on the development ofGDP are not yet available, Sadovská believes thatduring the last quarter foreign demand waspulling Slovakia’s economy along.

“It benefited mainly from economic growthin Germany, which has been the fastest sincethe unification of Germany,” Sadovská said.“Industrial production managed to return topre-crisis levels thanks to foreign demand.”

According to initial estimates, in the fourthquarter the German economy grew by 0.4 per-cent quarter-on-quarter while the Czech eco-nomy had growth of 0.5 percent in the sameperiod, said Mária Valachyová, analyst withthe Slovenská Sporiteľňa, who noted thatslightly higher growth rates had been forecast.

“The slowdown at the end of the year per-tains to several countries and to a certain de-gree it might also be linked to the unusuallyunfavourable weather,” Valachyová noted.

Ľubomír Koršňák, analyst with UniCreditBank, said that the reported increase in thegrowth of bank loans at the end of last yearsuggests that the investment activities of do-mestic enterprises might be recovering.

“However, it most probably undersignedhigher imports, which should reduce the con-tribution of net exports to GDP growth,”Koršňák suggested.

Koršňák predicted that household con-sumption will continue to dip and suggestedthat consumer confidence worsened late lastyear following the announcement of thegovernment’s fiscal austerity package.

“We do not have any illusions about do-mestic demand since unemployment hasbeen pretty high, which has hindered con-sumer demand,” Sadovská said, adding thatretail revenues, which did not post anyyear-on-year growth during any of themonths of the last quarter, proved thistrend.

This year Slovakia expects its economyto grow by 3.5 percent, slower than last year,noted Sadovská. She said that the heraldedconsolidation of the public finances mightbe behind the development.

“However, our growth will be due to for-eign demand,” Sadovská said. “Domesticdemand, influenced by the high unem-ployment rate, will remain under pressure.”

Koršňák expects the country’s economicgrowth rate in 2011 to slow to 3.1 percent,and that for at least the first half of the yearGDP growth will be fuelled by the perform-ance of Slovakia’s most important tradingpartners, mainly Germany, which should beaccompanied by reviving investment activ-ity among domestic enterprises.

Valachyová, by contrast, foresees economicgrowth in 2011 being similar to last year, withGDP rising by up to 4 percent. Along with in-dustry, which will obviously remain the driverof the economy, trade and services might re-vive as well, she added.

“The start of production at the new facilit-ies in the car and electro-technical industriesshould contribute as well,” Valachyová said.

The Ministry of Finance commented thatthe flash estimate of domestic employment atthe end of last year was a pleasant surprise sincethe fall in the number employed bottomed out.

The employment rate grew by 0.5 percentyear-on-year in the final quarter of 2010, with atotal of 2.172 million people employed. It in-creased 0.3 percent quarter-on-quarter, theStatistics Office reported. When seasonal in-fluences are included, employment grew by 0.4percent year-on-year to reach 2.163 million.

Andrej Arady, macro-economist with VÚBBanka, noted that the employment rate overthe previous seven quarters had been continu-ously dropping, but that the rate of declinesince the last quarter of 2009 had slowed.

RATE: Energy, food prices add to riseContinued from pg 1

“Slovakia is witnessing the largestsurge in prices for the past five years,” saidSmer leader Robert Fico, a former primeminister, attributing the higher prices tothe policies pursued by the current centre-right government led by Iveta Radičová.

The Finance Ministry retorted that therate of inflation in January was nothingextraordinary. The ministry’s state secret-ary, Vladimír Tvaroška, told a press con-ference that even though inflation of 3 per-cent is unpleasant, historical figures showthat since 2002 the inflation rate has al-ways exceeded 3 percent at the beginningof the year – with the only exception beingin 2010, which he said was a crisis year.

“During all the previous years, regard-less of whether it was the government of[Mikuláš] Dzurinda or [Robert] Fico, pricesin January have always grown by morethan 3 percent,” Tvaroška said, as quotedby the SITA newswire.

The Finance Ministry conceded,however, that the state’s austerity packageto cut the public deficit has also contrib-uted to rising consumer prices and it es-timated that these steps, particularly theincrease in value added tax on January 1,added 0.54 percentage points to the rate ofinflation reported in January, according toa news release from the ministry’s Finan-cial Policy Institute (FPI).

“After excluding the [austerity] pack-age, without modifications of the regu-lated prices, the year-on-year rate of infla-tion would stand at 2.5 percent,” FPI wrote.

The institute’s analysis added thatthere was a significant surge in regulatedprices, mainly energy prices in January:electricity prices jumped by 9.2 percent,prices for heat from central heating plantsgrew by 7.6 percent, and the price for nat-ural gas went up by 5.4 percent. Regulatedprices as a group grew by 5.8 percent inJanuary in comparison to January 2010.The ministry added that it believes the6.1-percent increase in food prices re-gistered in January was caused by devel-opments in global markets related to lastyear’s very poor harvest for certain grainsand legumes.

The ministry estimated that inflationfor the whole year will be 3.5 percent andthat salaries will grow slightly more, by 3.7percent.

Fico attributed “a substantial portion”of the January price increases to what hecalled “a senseless right-wing package ofmeasures” worked up and approved by thecurrent government, adding that “price

hikes ensue whenever [former prime min-ister] Mikuláš Dzurinda is in a position ofpower”.

“What this rightist government is or-chestrating now is beyond allexpectations,” Fico continued, as quotedby the TASR newswire. “The Slovak publicwill be faced with more and more dis-astrous effects.”

In addition to tax increases and jumpsin regulated energy prices, food and soft-drink prices increased by 6.1 percent year-on-year in January, transport prices wentup by 4 percent and prices for housing, wa-ter, electricity, gas and other fuels rose by3.7 percent according to data fromSlovakia’s Statistics Office. The prices ofhealth-care services grew by 3.5 percentand prices for alcoholic beverages and to-bacco rose by 2 percent.

“Higher VAT introduced by thegovernment’s consolidation package hascontributed to higher prices but regulatedprices and prices in commodity marketshave also played a role,” Eva Sadovská, ananalyst with Poštová Banka, told The Slov-ak Spectator.

Oil prices have been growing over thelast year and at the end of January theprice of Brent crude surpassed the psycho-logically important level of $100 a barrel,Sadovská noted. Prices for grains andlegumes such as wheat, corn and soybeansare also much higher than last year,Sadovská added, giving the example ofwheat prices which in the fifth week of2011 were 24 percent higher than threemonths ago and corn and soybean priceswhich were nearly 17 percent higher thanthree months ago.

“There is probably no driver who hasnot noticed the price level for petrol near-ing €1.40 per litre in recent weeks,”Sadovská stated, adding that cars arenow running on fuel that is more expens-ive than in 2008, when the price of petrollast hit a maximum. “The price tag fordiesel has been increasing as well, eventhough it has not yet reached its pre-crisis maximum level.”

Sadovská stated that changes in oiland fuel prices in world markets is first ofall behind the recent rise in inflation inSlovakia, along with this year’s actions toreduce the public deficit by raising cer-tain taxes and fees. For motorists, truck-ers and farmers, Sadovská noted thatseveral fuel exemptions were cancelledand that the higher VAT rate applies tofuels, electronic road tolls and car high-way stickers even though the price ofthose stickers was increased by nearly 40percent in 2011 from €36.50 to €50.

Sadovská predicted that overall con-sumer prices will increase this year inthe range of 3.4 to 3.5 percent but thatfood prices could grow by 6 to 7 percent.However, she expects that high unem-ployment in Slovakia and reduced do-mestic demand will continue to con-strain inflation in the coming months.

Boris Fojtík, an analyst with TatraBanka, stated that market analysts hadexpected the recent increase in prices inSlovakia while noting that a surprisesimilar to what happened in the CzechRepublic did not happen here. Inflationin the Czech Republic in January waslower than expected.

Fojtík noted that the largest con-tributors to January’s inflation wereregulated energy prices and since mostof these are in the housing category itwas not surprising that spendinglinked to housing recorded an increaseof 0.9 percent. Fojtík added that eco-nomists and governments in manycountries are again keeping a closerwatch on inflation.

“After long months of a slow pace inthe growth of prices, the increasingprices of commodities and the need toconsolidate public finances though high-er indirect taxes is being reflected in con-sumer prices,” Fojtík wrote in an analysisfor his bank. “This effect is so strong thatthe European Central Bank (ECB) hasstarted taking an interest in it.”

Fojtík believes that the pace of priceincreases in Slovakia will certainly behigher than the 2-percent inflation tar-get sought by the ECB.

4 BUSINESSFebruary 21 – 27, 2011

Leasing market slowly revives

AFTER dealing with a steep45-percent drop in businessvolume in 2009, Slovakia’sleasing sector began to re-vive in 2010. The aggregatevolume of new deals in-creased by 6.9 percent overthe course of 2010 and theoutlook for 2011 is positive,with growth expected toreach 10 percent, accordingto industry sources.

“Last year's volume [ofnew deals] is a far cry fromfigures reported in 2008, 2007and even in 2006,” JurajEbringer, the president ofthe Association of LeasingCompanies in Slovakia, told apress conference on February15. “We are now somewherearound the level of 2004.”

Ebringer said the eco-nomic crisis hit small andmedium-sized entrepreneursthe most as many did nothave enough reserve funds tobridge the difficult period,forcing many to withdrawfrom their leasing contractsor default on payments. Headded that leasing compan-ies register about 10,000 leas-

ing contracts which are incourt or will end up there,about 10 percent of all exist-ing leasing contracts.

The volume of new leas-ing deals in 2010 amountedto €1.615 billion, with leasesfor movable assets account-ing for €1.494 billion, up 5.1percent year-on-year. Theremaining deals, worth €121million, were for non-mov-able assets which registeredannual growth of 40 percent.But Ebringer said this sharpgrowth was related to effortsby firms to improve their li-quidity in 2010 and he doesnot expect such a large in-crease this year.

Ebringer stated that en-trepreneurs will remain thedriving force in leasing ofmovable assets in 2011 asthey were last year, with themost typical leased productbeing trucks. Ebringer saidhe expects more medium-sized companies to replacetheir fleets in the next year.

Compiled by Spectator staff

from press reports

Bread's getting dearer. Photo: SITA

74, 75

“I WAS the one who let youknow, I was your sorry-ever-after. Seventy-four,seventy-five.”

No one seems to knowexactly what The Connellshad in mind when they werewriting these particular linesto “74-75”, which became asmash hit across Europe inthe mid 1990s. Just as no oneseems to know what SaS bossRichard Sulík was thinkingwhen he kicked Igor Matovičout of his party’s parliament-ary caucus.

One thing that is clear isthat Sulík could borrow thelyrics and they would finallymake some sense – it is likelythat the head of parliamentstarted regretting kickingMatovič out right after, and

it is certain that sooner orlater the coalition will be leftwith only 74 or 75 votes inparliament. And thuswithout a majority.

The timing depends onhow soon Matovič launches

his own party, and the exactfigure on whether JozefViskupič, who among the four“Ordinary People” seems tohave the best relationshipwith SaS, stays or goes.

The current agreementonly postpones the eventualsplit. It is reasonable to arguethat prolonging uncertaintyis a bad idea, because a per-manent conflict within theSaS caucus is inevitable. Non-etheless, one has to be thank-ful for each month of relativestability this coalition canachieve. These will be a messyfour years, but all alternativesare worse.

It is in Matovič’s andSulík’s interest to realise thatthe country has bigger prob-lems than their fight overwho wrote what about whomin which blog.

If they don’t, they’ll end-up like The Connells – as one-hit wonders.

CHREN: Media pressureContinued from pg 2

Another onetime co-owner of Hayek Con-sulting, Ivan Švejna, a Most-Híd party nomin-ee, stepped down last year as state secretary atthe Ministry of Transport, Posts and Telecom-munications after what he called immensemedia pressure. Švejna said he resigned in or-der to protect the Hayek Foundation, a thinktank from which Hayek Consulting emerged,and his own party Most-Híd.

Hayek Consulting, when it was apparentlystill co-owned by Chren and Švejna, signed a€8,100 contract with the National Agency forDevelopment of Small and Medium Enter-prises, part of the Ministry of Economy, just afew days after both individuals were appoin-ted to their government positions in July. Inmid August, local media reported that Chrenand Švejna had terminated the state contracton behalf of the consulting firm. Also, underthe previous government, Hayek Consultinghad competed for several Finance Ministrycontracts along with other bidders that the

Sme daily reported were on friendly termswith the firm.

The Hayek Foundation, with which HayekConsulting was still affiliated, claimed that ithad become the target of a deliberate politicalcampaign that had damaged its reputation.

Prime Minister Iveta Radičová on Septem-ber 24, 2010, said that if a Supreme Audit Office(NKÚ) enquiry found that any of the deals madeby Hayek Consulting displayed irregularities orwere found to be in violation of procurementrules, Chren would have to go.

The NKÚ audit report later stated that re-sources from the budgets of the Finance Min-istry and the National Agency for Developmentof Small and Medium Enterprises (NADSME)were not used economically. However, theNKÚ also said that the funds Hayek Consultingreceived were used in line with the agreementsconcluded and that the firm carried out thetasks that had been expected of it. In fact theministry was blamed for erroneously assigningthe tasks, SITA reported.

Beata Balogová with press reports

Real change, or play-acting?IGOR Matovič and his Ordin-ary People were identified asa potential source of troublewithin the ruling coalitioneven before Matovič, soonafter last year’s general elec-tion, entertained the mediaby suggesting that he hadbeen offered millions ofeuros to destabilise the then-fragile coalition of centre-right forces. He later tossedaside his claim of possiblecorruption by explainingthat it was just a joke by afriend of his.

It was also clear long be-fore Matovič received his“educational slap on the face”from one-time Slovak Na-tional Party deputy chair-woman Anna Belousovová –after the “ordinary” mancalled her by a disrespectfuldiminutive, “Anča” – that hewould not be earning hisplace in the media spotlightbased on any weighty legis-lative proposals or an intel-lectual debating style. Most-Híd chairman Béla Bugárhighlighted this aspect ofMatovič’s character when ina recent interview he saidthat whenever the MP sees asecurity camera he starts giv-ing interviews.

Matovič and his OrdinaryPeople have been behavinglike adolescents who havecome of age but want to pickonly those aspects of adult-hood which they enjoy orwhich suit their image – orrather their idea of how theywould like to be perceived.However, the key to the rul-ing coalition’s majority liesin the hands of these politicaladolescents who could even-tually, if they are able to con-trol themselves, bring aboutsome changes.

Yet it seems thatMatovič’s energy, driven bya sudden surge of self-im-portance, has been con-sumed by watching his ownimage in different poses, po-sitions, statements and situ-ations, just like Alice in apolitical wonderland.

After he voted in favourof an opposition proposal in

parliament, Freedom andSolidarity (SaS) expelledMatovič from its parliament-ary caucus on February 10.Yet the threat of the govern-ment losing its majority –without the faction’s otherthree deputies the coalition

parties would be left withonly 74 MPs out of 150 – waslifted on February 16 whenthe Ordinary People’s JozefViskupič, Erika Jurinová andMartin Fecko promised toremain within the coalitionand vote with the govern-ment in parliament.

They also said that theywould stay for as long asMatovič does not establishhis own party. Yet Matovič,as his behaviour has shown,is obviously not a party per-son and what he likes doingmost is undermining exist-ing structures. He is a typicalexample of those who buildtheir profile based on criti-cism of the existing systemwhile offering what they call“genuine” solutions to bene-fit ordinary people. Yet hehas no plan to achieve suchan outcome.

Commentators point outthat given the way Matovičand his buddies operate theywill not be able to seriouslychallenge the system as itcurrently exists, based onpolitical parties installingtheir people to all levels ofthe state administration.This set-up means thatwhenever power changeshands in Slovakia, it is fol-lowed by a massive wave ofpolitical reshuffles.

In a recent interviewwith Sme.sk, Matovič sug-gested that on average eachMP has at least 10 nomineesin state firms and institu-tions, something which buysMPs’ loyalty and glues thecoalition together. Followingcriticism from coalition MPshe agreed to correct hisstatement – but only to saythat the average is morelikely closer to 20.

Now, as a “free deputy”Matovič has challenged theruling coalition to publish,by March, a list of its nomin-ees to state positions. Whatremains problematic thoughis the credibility of Matovičand the stories that he andSaS boss Richard Sulík haveoffered to explain the allegedagreement over how Matovičwould vote on amend-ments to the State Citizen-ship Act. Sulík says theiragreement did not includethe option that Matovičwould vote for a proposaldrafted by Robert Fico’sSmer party. The OrdinaryPeople leader says it did.

If the new style of polit-ics is based on tipsy agree-ments where the public isserved two differing inter-pretations it will not in-crease people’s trust in polit-ics; quite the contrary.

While some believed thatMatovič could have had thepotential to represent a newgeneration of politicians, hisperformance so far has onlyhighlighted the imperfec-tions of the system, and sug-gests he will not be able tochange any of the system’sfailings from the inside.

5OPINION / NEWS

QUOTE OF THE WEEK:“I want to prove to all those who were accusing meof being glued to my chair that it’s not the case.”

State Secretary Martin Chren explains why he is stepping down

SLOVAK WORDOF THE WEEK EDITORIAL

BY BEATA BALOGOVÁSpectator staff

BY LUKÁŠ FILASpecial to the Spectator

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February 21 – 27, 2011

Slovak and EU patents

LAST year individuals, businesses and institutionslodged a total of 236 patent applications with theIndustrial Property Office of the Slovak Republic (ÚPVSR); the office has granted a total of 376 patents forinventions by Slovak and foreign applicants submittedbetween 1995 and 2008, Július Šípoš, the spokesperson forthe ÚPV SR told The Slovak Spectator. Most applicationslast year were submitted in the mechanical engineeringand human necessities sectors, based on theinternational patent classification system.Šípoš said the current system in terms of internationalpatent protection is complicated as well as financiallyand administratively demanding.There are efforts at the European level to simplify thepatent-granting process. On February 15, the EuropeanParliament backed a simpler and less-expensive patentsystem for the European Union, the Reuters newswirewrote. The EU-wide patenting system proposed by theEuropean Commission is currently supported by 25 EUcountries but is opposed by Italy and Spain, who wanttheir languages to be included in the translation regime,in addition to the primary languages of English, Frenchand German. The current European patent system isessentially a collection of national patents which mustbe validated in each country, pushing up the cost of apatent to as much as €20,000, or about 10 times the costin the United States, Reuters wrote.Šípoš told The Slovak Spectator that the ÚPV SRwelcomes all activities linked to simplification of thepatent process as this could lead to more innovationand greater competitiveness in Europe.

Compiled by Spectator staff

Innovation recognised

THE WINNERS of the Innovate Act Awards for 2009 wereannounced on May 25, 2010, during the 17thInternational Engineering Trade Fair in Nitra. The aim ofthe competition is to promote innovative activities andto support business entities as well as private individualsin terms of innovation.In 2009 the jury evaluated 21 entries in total, whichcompeted for Ministry of Economy awards in fourcategories, the Slovak Innovation and Energy Agency(SIEA) reported on its website. Apart from the categoriesProduct Innovation, Process Innovation and Innovationin Services there was a new category – InternationalCooperation. The aim of granting an award in thiscategory was to support and to motivate thedevelopment of innovation in closer cooperationbetween Slovak and foreign partners.In the Product Innovation category the award went toVUKI for innovation in cables used for VVER 440-typenuclear reactors. Cement producer Považská CementáreňLadce received the Process Innovation award for itstechnology to reduce harmful chromate Cr(VI) incement. SLCP Consulting won the category of Innovationin Services with its MILK RUN simulation game, which isan original educational tool for purchasing logistics. Theaward in the newest category went to VUJE for its projectfor long-term secure operation of the Pakš nuclear powerstation in Hungary.

Compiled by Spectator staff

Slovak institutions andorganisations with innovation

in their portfolios

Ministry of Economywww.economy.gov.sk

Slovak Innovation and Energy Agency (SIEA)www.siea.sk

National Agency for Development of Small andMedium Enterpriseswww.nadsme.sk

Industrial Property Office of the Slovak Republicwww.indprop.gov.sk

Innovation – a path toeconomic growth

INNOVATION is seen as one ofthe main driving forces of eco-nomic growth and prosperity.Innovations, not only in termsof technologies, but also inmarketing, service delivery,management, design and otherfactors, increase firms’ com-petitiveness and provide amuch better chance to succeedin global markets. More innov-ation is also viewed as a way tomore quickly heal the crisis-hitglobal economy. Even thoughthe Slovak government saysthat it shares these tenets, itssupport for innovation hasthus far been mostly in theform of lofty declarations withonly a few tangible initiatives.Some observers hope that newfaces in the government mightbring some real changes in thisfield as well.

“Innovations are globallyregarded as one of the possibil-ities to accelerate transit fromthe post-crisis economy to astronger and permanently sus-tainable economy,” JozefVelebný from the departmentof industry and innovations atthe Economy Ministry told TheSlovak Spectator. “Eventhough this is not a solution forall the problems in the world,innovations provide a basis fornew sectors, companies andwork positions. Innovationsare necessary to increase com-petitiveness, diversify eco-nomic activities and move to-wards activities with a higheradded value.”

Martin Bruncko, who wasappointed as the government’splenipotentiary for a know-ledge-based economy on Feb-ruary 2, agreed – saying that inthe long run Slovakia’s eco-nomy and living standards cancontinue to grow only if thecountry focuses on innovationand transforming the economyfrom one based on manufac-turing of products developedelsewhere into an economythat generates world-classproducts and services based onSlovak ideas and inventions.

Near the bottom in the EU

The actual position of Slov-akia in terms of fostering in-

novation stands in stark con-trast to the government’sstatements about where thecountry would like to see itself.

In the Innovation UnionScoreboard 2010, an annualreport comparing the innov-ation performance of all 27European Union countries re-leased on February 1, Slovakiaplaced 23rd, lagging behindall its neighbouring coun-tries. Slovakia also slipped bytwo rankings from its 21stposition in the scoreboard re-leased for 2009.

The 2010 scoreboard putSlovakia in last positionamong the ‘Moderate Innov-ators’ group and the countryrecorded innovation perform-ance only slightly above the 50percent average registeredacross the entire EU.

The report stated thatSlovakia’s relative strengthswere in indicators in the cat-egory of human resources andoutputs but noted relativeweaknesses in the categoriesof: open, excellent and attract-ive research systems; financeand support; firm invest-ments; linkages and entre-preneurship; intellectual as-sets; and innovators.

Significant improvementwas reported in the categoriesof: public-private co-publica-tions; community trade-marks; and communitydesigns. A significant declinein performance was noted forthe categories of non-EU doc-torate students and non-R&Dinnovation expenditure.Slovakia’s improved perform-ance in human resources,linkages and entrepreneur-ship, and intellectual assetswas above average but in oth-er categories it was below av-erage, according to the report.

There are multiple reasonsfor Slovakia’s low ranking butthe factors that were men-tioned most often are a lack ofadequate financial support,

insufficient forms of coopera-tion between academia andbusiness, and the state’s fail-ure to develop a clear innova-tion strategy.

“Slovakia is lagging be-hind our neighbours in pro-moting and supporting educa-tion, research, development,and innovations,” Brunckotold The Slovak Spectator. “In-stead of aiding scientists andinnovators, our byzantinelaws and burdensome admin-istrative procedures hindertheir progress at every step.Compared with our neigh-bours, Slovakia also does verylittle to aid in the active flowof ideas between academiaand the world of business.”

Bruncko pointed out thatthere are some very talentedscientists in Slovakia workingon cutting-edge research infields such as cancer researchor new materials but they facetoo many obstacles.

“They succeed becausethey can build on what used tobe a strong education systemand a great respect for sciencethat once attracted the bestminds of this country to aca-demia, and they succeed inspite of our current policies,not because of them,” Brun-cko stated, adding that evenwhen the scientists succeed inthe laboratory they need tofight another uphill battlewhen they want to properlypatent their ideas, and thenstruggle to find the fundsneeded to implement theirideas.

Velebný noted that ex-penditures by both the publicsector and the private sectorfor research and developmentare very low in Slovakia.

“The average expenditurefor R&D by EU member coun-tries makes up 1.82 percent ofGDP,” Velebný told The SlovakSpectator. “In Slovakia it isonly 0.48 percent and publicfunds account for 55 percent of

all the expenditures on sci-ence and research.”

Velebný said the govern-ment sees several factors as ly-ing behind Slovakia’s weak re-search position: a lack of tan-gible targets and large com-panies not investing enoughin research; ineffective sup-port from the public sector;low motivation of researchworkers; poor interconnec-tions between academia andbusiness; and others.

In evaluating Slovakia’smediocre position on thescoreboard, Miroslav Balogfrom the Slovak Innovationand Energy Agency (SIEA), anorganisation established bythe Ministry of Economy,stated that there is insufficientcooperation between indi-vidual stakeholders. He thinksit is necessary to develop a pro-innovation infrastructure andfocus it on the needs of in-dustry and not only on basicresearch. He added that anoth-er challenge is to attract anduse venture capital, which hesaid stands behind the successof many innovative companiesin the US, but is not standardpractice in Slovakia.

Andrej Klimant, the man-ager of international activitiesat the National Agency for De-velopment of Small and Medi-um Enterprises (NADSME)told The Slovak Spectator thathe believes Slovakia’s basicproblem is that its economy iscurrently based primarily onproduction for foreign in-vestors that combine cheapdomestic labour with impor-ted technologies.

Marián Marek from the ITAssociation of Slovakia (ITAS)agreed with that assessmentand added that Slovakia’s rank-ing is in line with the structureof its GDP, which is dominatedby manufacturing and indus-trial production.

“Global players developnew products and technolo-gies mostly in their homecountries,” Marek told TheSlovak Spectator. “One shouldrealise that research, devel-opment and innovations areusually the most valuable as-sets of these companies andthese are concentrated intorelative narrow teams andthat creation of their ecosys-tems often takes years. Thus,their transfer somewhere elseis very demanding and is usu-ally very gradual, in contrastto the construction of a newassembly plant.”

See NEW pg 8

BY JANA LIPTÁKOVÁSpectator staff

Carmaker Kia encourages new ideas from staff. Photo: SITA

6

TAX AND AUDIT

Next issue:BUSINESS FOCUS

INNOVATIONFebruary 21 – 27, 2011

The state has sofar mostly offeredlofty declarations

Firms welcome innovativeideas from their employees

President decries shift in spend-ing from R&D to highways

Firms welcomeinnovative ideas

SOME COMPANIES understandthat no one knows the produc-tion processes in their work-places better than the workersthemselves and for that reasonthey motivate their employeesto come up with innovativeideas to improve productionprocesses, to save energy ormaterials or to better protectthe environment. Solicitingthese good ideas does not onlybring benefits such as a betterworking environment or high-er productivity, some compan-ies also offer financial rewardsto their employees.

The Slovak Spectator spokewith Ján Bača, spokesperson ofU.S. Steel Košice, VladimírMachalík, spokesperson forVolkswagen Slovakia, DušanDvořák, head of the public rela-tions team at Kia Motors Slov-akia, and Anton Molnár, headof corporate communicationsat the Slovnaft oil refineryabout how their companiessupport the development ofinnovative ideas.

The Slovak Spectator (TSS):How does your companysupport proposals for im-provements, innovationsand patents coming fromyour employees or cus-tomers?

Ján Bača (JB): In the past10 years alone more than 1,000improvement proposals havebeen put forward and aboutthe same number of employ-ees have been involved in de-veloping improvements andinventions. The Departmentof the Director for Centres ofExcellence has a team of ex-perts on intellectual propertywho in turn provide the meth-odology for 15 specialists forinventions in the individualdivision plants.

Vladimír Machalík (VM):We are motivating employeesto come with ideas for im-provements within our man-agement of ideas and continu-ous improvement process.Last year inventive employeesat Volkswagen Slovakiahelped to save more than €7.3million, 1.3 million KWh ofelectricity, 262,000 cubicmetres of natural gas and 752tons of CO2. A total of 2,049employees submitted 6,154proposals for improvement.

Dušan Dvořák (DD): At KiaMotors Slovakia we have im-plemented IPAS – Idea ProposalActivity System – which allemployees can join. Its purpose

is not only financial savingsand increases in productivityor quality but also improve-ment of working conditionsand environmental protection.This creates space for employ-ees’ self-realisation throughwhich they can further developtheir skills and abilities.

Anton Molnár (AM): MOLgroup, of which Slovnaft is amember, has implemented theEiffel programme, throughwhich ideas for improvementsare collected directly from em-ployees, assessed and imple-mented. The aim of the Eiffelprogramme is to not leave pro-cesses running without ana-lyses, criticisms and proposalsfor changes. This supports em-ployees’ independent think-ing, the ability to propose in-novations and to force theirimplementation. Our companyexpects and rewards such anattitude. The submission ofproposals is very simple andwithout bureaucracy and use-less formalities.

TSS: Please provide an ex-ample of successful innova-tion or an improvement thatcame from employees or cus-tomers.

JB: One of the successfultechnical solutions was an in-vention called the ‘Productionmethod for finish-type isotrop-ic sheets and strips for electric-al appliances with universalmagnetic polarisation’. Just assuccessful was an improve-ment proposal for a ‘Clip to holdthe top cover grill on steel dual-panel radiator units’. There aremany similar examples and theeconomic benefits of the pro-posals which have been accep-ted and implemented can becalculated in millions of euros.

VM: One of the workers atthe paint shop at VolkswagenSlovakia had an idea for how toimprove the cleaning of largepaint baths into which car bod-ies are dipped. These bathshave to be cleaned eachThursday with chemicals. Thefollow-up processing of thechemicals was demanding. Hecame up with an idea for usingthe chemical substance, ori-ginally used only for one bath,several times. This idea hassaved the company as much as48 tonnes of chemicals annu-ally as well as electricity whichwould be enough for 1.5 hours’operation of the whole com-pany. The employee was re-warded for his excellent idea.

DD: One of our mainten-ance experts for engine pro-duction proposed an auto-mated system for calling formaintenance, achieving signi-ficant annual savings. He wasrewarded for it. The new sys-tem has not only brought fin-ancial benefits. Now mainten-ance workers know about anew failure within seconds andare able to respond quickly.Also they can re-distribute

their tasks and proceed to re-move problems according tothe relevance of failures.

AM: A change in the sys-tem for handling remnants ofphenol samples is one ex-ample. Remnants of phenolsamples used to be left in thesample container and thenthey solidified. Afterwardsthey were collected and li-quidated as dangerous waste.Based on an idea from an em-ployee at a related departmentthe remnants of the samplesare now being poured into onevessel before they solidify. Thematerial collected in this wayis not liquidated as waste but isreturned to the productionunit where it is further pro-cessed. The idea was imple-mented in 2010 and on thebasis of assembled data the re-duction in annual wastecomes to 1.24 tonnes.

TSS: Does your company havea department for science, re-search, technology transferor innovation? If so, tell usabout its size and focus.

JB: Research and develop-ment has a long tradition aspart of the Košice steelworks’organisational structure andthis year the department celeb-rates the 43rd anniversary of itsestablishment. The staff of theU.S. Steel Europe Research andDevelopment deals primarilywith applied research focusedon solving the needs of opera-tional divisions through thewhole technology process inthe European plants of U.S.Steel Corporation which arelocated in Slovakia and Serbia.The R&D staff also providestechnical support to the pro-duction plants, develop and op-timise production technolo-gies and product properties,and develop new grades of steelfor various industrial applica-tions in line with our custom-ers’ requirements. U.S. SteelCorporation has implementedthe concept of Centres of Excel-lence through which the bestsolutions are sharedthroughout the corporation.U.S. Steel Europe Research andDevelopment has five such ex-cellence centres, while othersprovide services based withinU.S. Steel Research Munhall inPennsylvania, USA. There isclose cooperation and sharingof knowledge and experiencebetween our European andAmerican research teams.

VM: In Volkswagen Slov-akia the department of indus-trial engineering and man-agement of ideas is dealingwith improvements. It hassome tens of employees.

When introducing newproduction we always ponderthe latest technologies. For ex-ample, Volkswagen Slovakiawill be the first company in theworld to implement the tech-nology of the dry separation ofelements in the paint shop for

serial car production. It will beused in the production of theNew Small Family cars and itwill reduce emissions by 90percent and reduce energy con-sumption by up to 80 percent.

DD: Kia Motors Slovakiadoes not have its own re-search and development de-partment as it focuses on carmanufacturing. Our parentcompany Kia Motors Corpor-ations has development andresearch centres in SouthKorea, Japan, the USA andEurope. The ‘central’ officefor research was launched inthe Korean town of Namyangin 1995. At the European re-search and developmentcentre in Rüsselsheim,launched in 2003, Kia con-centrates on the whole de-velopment of diesel enginesas well as on development ofcars designed for Europeancustomers.

AM: The extensive scopeof activities of Slovnaft andthe complexity of the indus-trial branch in which it oper-ates have led to the creation ofseveral departments dealingwith science, research, tech-nology transfer and innova-tions. Each of them is devotedto specialised research andinnovation for a specific field:downstream development –research and development inthe segment of fuels and lub-ricants; renewable resources –research into bio-fuels; andthe Research Institute forCrude Oil and HydrocarbonGases – research and devel-opment in the processing ofcrude oil and the petrochem-ical industry.

To read more of this surveyplease visit www.spectator.sk.

BY JANA LIPTÁKOVÁSpectator staff

7BUSINESS FOCUS

President decries cuts in R&D

SLOVAK President IvanGašparovič is saddened by thedecision of the Iveta Radičovágovernment to re-allocatefinancial resources from theResearch and DevelopmentOperational Programme andthe Education OperationalProgramme to highway con-struction. PresidentGašparovič so commented inreaction to a petition driveinitiated by representativesof the Slovak Academy of Sci-ences (SAV), the TASR news-wire wrote on February 13.

“By taking these resourcesfrom our scientists, it’s as ifwe are trying to tell the EUthat they were unable to usethe money appropriately,” hesaid in a statement. Accord-ing to President Gašparovič,Slovakia now runs the risk ofnot receiving any furthersubsidies for its operationalprogrammes.

On February 2, the cabin-et reallocated €350 million tothe Operational ProgrammeTransport, which means itwill be spent on highwayconstruction. Of this, €120million will be reallocatedfrom the Operational Pro-gramme Research and Devel-opment and almost €60 mil-lion from the OperationalProgramme Education. Themove has triggered com-plaints among representat-ives of the academic and sci-entific community. They be-lieve that it might have acatastrophic effect on Slovakscience. Their concerns led toa petition to reverse thegovernment’s decision. Sci-entists claim that the €180million will be enough tobuild just 12 kilometres ofhighway. Over 8,200 Slovakscientists, academic person-

alities and members of thepublic have already joinedthe action.

The cabinet argues thatEU funds for science are notbeing drawn in sufficientquantity. SAV chairmanJaromír Pastorek blamed thison bureaucracy, which hesaid is much worse in receiv-ing EU funds for science thanin other fields. According ofPastorek, only a few kilo-metres of highway can bebuilt from the money real-located from the OP Educa-tion. Yet the funds are of acrucial importance to Slovakscience, which he said is un-dernourished.

Pastorek appealed forpeople to “support Slovak sci-ence and education and eventhe future of Slovakia at thewww.zachranmevedu.skwebsite,” claiming that thecabinet has behaved schizo-phrenically by on one handdeclaring that science, re-search, education and aknowledge society are its pri-orities, but on the other handmaking decisions that un-dermine science.

Comenius University’srector, Karol Mičeta, alsowarned that the cabinet’s de-cision could jeopardise edu-cation and research at uni-versities.

In Slovakia, as PresidentGašparovič pointed out, statefinancing for research anddevelopment is under 0.5 per-cent of GDP, a level which isunacceptable and needs to beincreased so that Slovakia canat least close the gap withother European nations. InFinland, for example, 3.4 per-cent of GDP is spent on R&D.

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employees forimprovements

Swedish incubator firm visits SAVREPRESENTATIVES of aSwedish private incubatorcalled Serendipity Innova-tions visited the SlovakAcademy of Sciences in midOctober, the TASR newswirereported. The main aim oftheir visit was to become ac-quainted with opportunitiesfor cooperation in Slovakia.

The co-owner and co-founder of the company,Saeid Esmaeilzadeh, plusproject manager Amin Om-rani, were accompanied bySlovak Ambassador toSweden Peter Kmec and Mar-tin Bruncko from the com-pany Neulogy, which spe-cialises in complex solutionsand services for companiesand R&D institutions.

Serendipity Innovationsis a Swedish private businessincubator and investmentfund whose aim is to com-mercialise leading academicresearch. It was launched in

2004 and has so far managedto build up over 10 compan-ies whose outputs are basedon intensive research anddevelopment. This focushelps new companies to sur-vive in their markets (with asuccess rate of over 80 per-cent) and generate an in-crease in profits described as‘incomparably higher’.Serendipity currently ownsshares in several companiesspecialising in the applica-tion of scientific knowledgeand development of new ma-terials and technologies.

One example is Dia-morph, a company activein the development andproduction of advancedtechnical ceramics used inbearings that has alreadyinitiated activities inPovažská Bystrica.

Compiled by Spectator staff

from press reports

Innovative ideas from behind bars

SOME prisoners inSlovakia’s jails are spendingtheir free time inventing.Examples of their activitiesare being exhibited until theend of March in BanskáBystrica at a display calledWhat Is In Us.

One prisoner devotedtwo years to inventing newtechnological solutions fordrying walls and masonry,and improving the internalcombustion engine. Theresults achieved by the pris-oner, who was named bypublic broadcaster STV as

Miroslav G., caught the at-tention of the IndustrialProperty Office of the SlovakRepublic. They are now re-ceiving so-called utilitymodel protection, similar topatent protection.

Miroslav G. said he wasable to use his knowledge asa technician and a mechanicin the isolated prison envir-onment.

He stated that he hadmore time to think in pris-on, adding that he now be-lieves he is pointing in theright direction.

SAV innovation centre opened

INOVAL, an innovationcentre for aluminium pro-cessing technologies andaluminium products was ce-remonially opened in Žiarnad Hronom in mid October2010. The centre is a jointproject of the SlovakAcademy of Sciences (SAV)and the company SAPA Pro-fily, on whose premises thecentre is located. The plan isto cooperate on developmentprojects and their practicalimplementation.

“We wanted to get closerto clients who work withlight metals because formany of them Bratislava istoo far,” said FrantišekSimančík, the director of theBratislava-based SAV’s Insti-tute of Materials and Ma-chine Mechanics, as cited bythe TASR newswire. “We alsowanted to start to solve withthem common problemswhich they encounter intheir workplaces.”

The centre should alsocarry out research in thefield of pressing compositematerials based on lightmetals for clients who are

eager to bring new materialsinto production.

Thanks to financial sup-port from EU StructuralFunds the centre boasts amodern laboratory and otherequipment. SAPA Profily hasinvested more than €420,000in the project.

Research in the centreshould focus on modellingand simulation.

“We will further try tooptimise technologicalparameters in order to re-duce waste and to simultan-eously increaseproductivity,” Simančík said,as cited in the local newspa-per, adding that SAV wouldobtain equipment and re-search would be carried outin cooperation with indus-trial partners, who wouldpay for it.

INOVAL plans to com-plete its first project by theend of December 2011 witha budget of roughly €0.5million.

SAV also has the ambi-tion is to build a so-calledcompetence centre on thesame site.

NEW: BISMES project to help SMEsContinued from pg 6

Marek also stated that his-torical developments havehad an impact on Slovakia’sstanding in research and de-velopment.

“Almost nothing has sur-vived from the strong com-panies which had developedresearch bases during the pre-vious regime,” Marek said.“Only the academic field hasactually remained, butwithout real demand from thedomestic commercial sector itis doomed to vegetate. It ispleasing that there are alreadysome examples of successfulSlovak companies whichhave established themselvesin the world market by theirown efforts. These can alsogradually wrap up withinthemselves the related re-search and development. Ihave in mind, for example,Eset from the IT sector.”

Milan Cagala, the presid-ent of Slovakia’s Federation ofMechanical Engineering, saidthat the state has failed to de-velop a system and a clearstrategy in terms of innova-tion: what we want to accom-plish, how we will do it, andhow much money we will al-locate for this.

“The example of the recentdecision of the cabinet to re-al-locate funds earmarked forSlovak science and research tohighway construction is veryunfortunate,” Cagala said. “Onthe one hand the cabinet sup-ports science, research and de-velopment, i.e. a knowledge-based economy, in its four-year programme but on theother hand it is taking moneydirectly from these sectors.This has no logic. The import-ance of highway constructionis beyond doubt, but sourcesfor that should be sought else-where because cutting thealready small amount ofmoney which researchers andscientists receive is a step notfar removed from the direct li-quidation of Slovak brains.”

Cagala admitted that dueto the economic crisis mech-anical engineering companieswere more focused just on sur-vival, production, than onmaking innovations in areaswhere capacities were missingor needed improvement. Buthe added that the state haspromised more support for in-novation than it has delivered,noting that the governmenthas merely declared majorbacking for a knowledge-basedeconomy including more in-novation while one of the veryfew tangible initiatives is theawards made under the In-novate Act.

ITAS agreed that supportfrom the state has been min-imal but Marko of ITAS addedthat “on the other hand, I ampersonally not a supporter ofvery active initiatives by thegovernment in terms of specif-ic projects”. He noted,however, that there are only afew global firms with com-mercial development centresbased in Slovakia which could

develop new technologies ordesign new products and sug-gested that “the state shouldhelp create an interesting in-vestment environment for de-velopment and innovationcentres of global players.”

What makes a country

innovative?

“A country is innovativeonly when individual parti-cipants in the market undercompetition are successful andachieve this also due toinnovations,” Balog told TheSlovak Spectator. “It is import-ant that there are as many in-novative players as possibleand that conditions are createdthat foster their growth.”

Innovation increases thecompetitiveness of companiesand gives them a better chanceto succeed in increasinglyglobal markets.

“Innovations are an im-portant growthdeterminant,” Balog said. “Indeveloped countries, for ex-ample in Austria, Sweden,Finland, the UK and the US,investment into nonmaterialassets and growth of multi-factorial productivity is re-sponsible for two-thirds tothree-quarters of the labourproductivity growth between1995 and 2006.”

Balog pointed out that in-novation was a significantfactor in the economic growthof Singapore and Taiwan.

“In our conditions, uni-versities and the SlovakAcademy of Sciences should bemore open to cooperation withcompanies,” Balog added. “In-stitutional parameters shouldbe set in a way so that theycatalyse such cooperation.”

SIEA actively supports in-novation and is implementingseveral programmes financedfrom EU Structural Funds, Ba-log said, adding that those whoare interested can submit ap-plications until June 2011 forsupport of projects in industri-al research and experimentaldevelopment, adding that thisincludes companies which en-trust product research and de-velopment to their suppliers.

Balog stated that innova-tion requires more than justbasic scientific research.

“More and more in theworld the need to support

bridging the gap between re-search, development anddemonstration is beingspoken about,” he said. “Thus,it is necessary to also focussupport on parts of the innov-ation process other than onlybasic research. A certain ad-vance was made in Slovakiaduring the time of the crisiswhen the Slovak governmentmade a step towards more in-tensive support for applied re-search. But the most import-ant thing with regards to anykind of support is to nothamper natural evolutionaryprocesses in the economy.”

NADSME is also activelysupporting more innovation,administering an EU projectcalled Boosting the Innovationof Small and Medium-sized En-terprises in Slovakia (BISMES).

“This project originated asa response by NADSME and theEuroActiv.sk portal to a specif-ic call from the EuropeanCommission for members ofthe Enterprise EuropeNetwork,” Klimant said.

BISMES started in June2010 and Klimant regards it asvery satisfactory thus far asthe interest of SMEs, as well asother relevant players, in de-veloping and participating inthe support programme isvery high.

Better times on the horizon?

Slovakia’s Economy Min-istry has prepared 13 basicmeasures in its draft Innova-tion Policies 2011-2013 docu-ment to foster more innova-tion activities in the businesssphere. The main aim of thedocument is to increase com-petitiveness by developingsupport mechanisms for in-novation structures, innovat-ive business-making, andpartnerships and cooperationbetween academia and busi-ness. The document is cur-rently undergoing inter-de-partmental review.

The ministry focused onthree priorities which it con-siders of key importance foreconomic growth: high qualityinfrastructure and an effectivesystem for development of in-novations; quality human re-sources; and effective tools forinnovations.

At this time Velebný didnot wish to specify the indi-

vidual measures as they mightchange during the review andapproval process.

Velebný added that ac-complishing the goals will re-quire close cooperationbetween several ministries aswell as acquiring the neces-sary funding. He estimatedthat €96 million will beneeded between 2011 and 2013and that €90.55 million couldcome from EU StructuralFunds (including co-financingfrom the state budget), withthe remainder coming frompublic funds. Since the pleni-potentiary for a knowledge-based economy, tasked withsecuring this cooperation,was appointed only on Febru-ary 2 the Slovak cabinet willact on these proposals laterthan originally planned.

“We expect implementa-tion of the measures duringthe second half of 2011,”Velebný said, adding that theEconomy Ministry will holdnegotiations with the FinanceMinistry and the Ministry ofEducation, Science, Researchand Sports to seek the neces-sary funds.

Bruncko said he supportsthese initiatives by the Eco-nomy Ministry and believesthey can help improve busi-ness innovation in Slovakia.But he added some caveats.

“However, in order forthese activities to have a trulymeaningful impact, theyshould be a part of a largerstrategy that integrates theinitiatives of, among others,the Ministry of Economy, theMinistry of Education, theAcademy of Sciences, the Min-istry of Finance, and otherministries and state agenciesthat can influence education,research and development,and entrepreneurship inSlovakia,” Bruncko emphas-ised to The Slovak Spectator.

“For that reason, I haveasked the Economy Ministry topostpone its initiative for acouple more months so that Ican help them coordinate theirinitiatives with the other rel-evant actors.”

Some of the additionalsteps which Bruncko believesare necessary are the buildingof a national system of techno-logy transfer between aca-demia and the business world,going beyond industrialclusters to true science andtechnology parks that integ-rate industry and researchactivities, improving the ac-cess of entrepreneurs tosources of funding, and redu-cing and where possible re-versing Slovakia’s brain drain.

“In addition, we also needto significantly increase publicfunding for education, R&Dand innovations, and dramat-ically reduce the administrat-ive burden for firms and forscientists who are actually try-ing to apply for such funds,particularly EU funds,” Brun-cko emphasised.

To read an interview with AndrejKlimant about the BISMES

project, visit www.spectator.sk

Slovakia needs more R&D and innovation. Photo: TASR

8 BUSINESS FOCUSFebruary 21 – 27, 2011

FOCUS shorts

Deaflympics cancelled at last minute

THE DEAFLYMPIC Gameshave become yet anothersymbol of botched organisa-tion of an event in Slovakia.Several dozen foreign ath-letes found themselves in theSlovak mountains thismonth with no opportunityto compete despite havingspent large amounts ofmoney to be there.

The International Com-mittee of Sports for the Deaf(ICSD) confirmed on the even-ing of February 11 that the 17thWinter Deaflympics, sched-uled to begin on February 18 inthe High Tatra mountains,had been officially cancelled.The Slovak organisers admit-ted they had failed to securethe money necessary to organ-ise the games on time.

The ICSD noted that onthe afternoon of February 11,the key venues of JasnáNízke Tatry ski resort, ParkSnow FIS and Interski inŠtrbské Pleso announcedthey had still not been paidby the organising committeeand as a direct consequence,had publicly announced thecancellation of their con-tracts to host the games.

By that time dozens ofathletes had already arrivedin Slovakia to prepare for thegames to begin a week later,and dozens more were onplanes or trains en route tothe venue.

“All the expenses thathave been spent until now areregistered and we will imme-diately start working on pay-ing the debts as soon aspossible,” the head of the Slov-ak organising committee,Jaromír Ruda, wrote in astatement dated February 11.

He added “I accepted this re-sponsibility, I bear it, and Idon’t avoid it”.

Mismanaged organisation

Peter Chudý, the directorof the High Tatras TourismAssociation, who served as anofficer for relations with theSlovak organisers at the re-quest of the ICSD from Febru-ary to April 2010, believesthat the Slovak organisers,led by Jaromír Ruda, aremainly responsible for thefailure to organise the games,but that the ICSD also bearspartial responsibility.

Chudý was made respons-ible for watching over the or-ganisation of the game afteran ICSD inspection in Janu-ary 2010, when a memor-andum was signed that bythe end of February the Slov-ak organisers would have tofulfil three tasks.

“We fulfilled two of them,but the third one – financialguarantees – we couldn’tfulfil,” Chudý told The SlovakSpectator, adding that theyasked for the deadline to beprolonged three times, butwhen it turned out that theSlovak Deaflympic Commit-tee would not be able to se-

cure the €2 million necessaryfor the organisation of thegames, Chudý gave up hispost in April 2010 and the IC-SD subsequently cancelledthe games in Slovakia.

However, the ICSD laterreconsidered its decision andthe organisation of the 11thWinter Deaflympics was ap-parently back on track by Oc-tober 2010.

“They then sent two in-spections to Slovakia to look atthe sporting facilities, butdidn’t focus on the basic issuewhich had caused the gamesto be taken away from Slov-akia previously – whether themoney would or would not beavailable,” Chudý said.

Last-minute halt

The Slovak media were re-porting problems with the or-ganisation of the gamesweeks before the scheduledlaunch of the WinterDeaflympics and continued todo so up to the point whenforeign athletes started arriv-ing in Slovakia, but Ruda keptassuring the public that thegames would definitely takeplace as planned.

“The fact that it went as farthat the athletes arriving here

and having to leave withouthaving competed is on theshoulders of the ICSD,” Chudýsaid, explaining that the Slov-ak Deaflympic Committeeconcealed the problems untilthe last moment in the beliefthat they would somehow se-cure finances. He argued thatthe ICSD should have used itsauthority to check whetherthings were going well or not.

The organisers waited toolong to announce the cancel-lation, as on February 11 manyathletes from Russia, Canadaand Ukraine were already inSlovakia, and others, such asthe Japanese and Americans,were already on their way.

“My first reaction wasdisbelief,” Kimberley Rizzi,the executive director of theCanadian Deaf Sports Associ-ation, told CBC Sports. “Icouldn’t believe, witheverything we had done. […] Iwas just sick to my stomach,terribly upset.”

Rizzi, along with abouthalf of the nearly 40 competit-ors representing Canada, plusmany of their coaches, medic-al staff, interpreters and fam-ily, were already in Vienna at apre-games training camp,mostly for the ice hockeyteam, CBC Sports reported.

The Canadian athletes claimthey will require reimburse-ment for the “colossal amountof resources spent to prepareand to get there”.

According to CBC, each ofthe Canadian athletes was re-quired to raise CAD1,800 (ap-proximately €1,350), about 25percent of the costs; the restcame from local, provincialand national fundraising andgovernment funding.

Fraud accusations

“After arriving here inVysoké Tatry to begin ourmonitoring of final prepara-tions for the WinterDeaflympics, we became in-creasingly concerned aboutthe lack of readiness and theabsence of key organisers,”ICSD Chief Executive TiffanyGranfors said in a press releaseon February 13. “Repeated as-surances had been given re-garding the organisingcommittee’s financial stateand its overall readiness. Butthese assurances were simplynot matched by the facts onthe ground.”

Granfors blamed the Slov-ak organisers, saying that therepresentatives of the SlovakDeaflympic Committee headed

by Ruda provided documentsduring the previous inspec-tions that suggestedeverything was going well.

“Now we’ve found theywere false,” Granfors said, asquoted by the Sme daily. “Wesimply fell victim to a fraud.”

Ruda rejected accusationsof fraud and in turn accusedGranfors of lying and said hewould take legal action.

Meanwhile, the Slovakmedia reported that Ruda isfacing accusations of havingembezzled as much as €1.7million he had received to payfor organisation of the games.Ice rinks in Levoča andKežmarok were supposed tohave been rebuilt for theWinter Deaflympics, but thework remains uncompletedand both stadiums are nowapparently unusable. Accord-ing to Chudý, Ruda said in thepast that he was promised €60million for reconstruction ofsport facilities for the games.

“Although the reconstruc-tions were launched with theaim of holding Deaflympiccompetitions there, the in-vestment wasn’t bound to theevent and the investment ac-tions will be carried out,”Ruda wrote in his statement.

Slovakia’s image harmed

Chudý, who has experi-ence in organising big sportsevents in the High Tatras,does not believe thatSlovakia’s chances of organ-ising other major sportingevents in the future havesuffered much harm from thefailure of organisers of theWinter Deaflympics, as thefederations which preparesport events have independ-ent experience with Slovakorganisers.

“Unfortunately, it will ob-viously resonate among offi-cials that Slovakia and this re-gion is a country where wewere supposed to dosomething and we didn’t, sothere will be this bad imagethat we promised somethingand then did not live up to it,”Chudý concluded.

Tiffany Granfors, chief executive of the ICSD.

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9NEWS February 21 – 27, 2011

BY MICHAELATERENZANISpectator staff

Athletes travelhome from

Slovakiadisappointed

The unfinished ice rink in Kežmarok, near the High Tatras. Photos: TASR

Banská Štiavnica’s Belá Gate

IN THIS precious postcardfrom 1909 we see the Belá orBelianska Gate (BelianskaBrána) in BanskáŠtiavnica. It wasamong the maintown gates and, asits name suggests,it faced towardsBanská Belá, a nearby town.

The gate was builtbetween 1588 and 1589 as partof the town’s extensive forti-fications against the threat ofOttoman attack. Rich mining

towns like Banská Štiavnica(Banská refers to mining)were a great temptation to the

Ottomans but they nevermanaged to conquer such atown in Slovakia.

The gate’s inner side wasadorned with a small towncrest which can be seen just

above the arch. A large Hun-garian crest and the town’screst were on the outside walls

of the gate. As can beseen, the structure wasused for housing at thetime of this postcard.

Although Belá Gateresisted attacks from

the Ottomans, it was des-troyed by the German army inMarch 1945 during its retreatthrough this region.

By Branislav Chovan

HISTORY TALKS

WesternSLOVAKIA

Bratislaval BALLET: UNISONO IX.Symphony – The Szeged Con-temporary Ballet ensemble,from Hungary, will give a per-formance inspired by the fam-ous Schiller-Beethoven workOde to Joy, expressing a mod-ern interpretation of the piece.

Starts: February 22, 19:00;SND historical building, Hviez-doslavovo Square. Admission:€10-€25. Tel: 02/2047-2272,02/2047-2299; www.snd. sk.

Bratislaval DJ PARTY: 10. narodeninyNu Spirit Baru – The Nu SpiritBar celebrates its 10th birth-day with a series of discos withits staple of DJs and per-formers playing a host ofmodern genres.

Starts: February 23, 25 and26, 20:30; Medená 16. Admis-sion: €4-€5. Tel: 0905/865-566;www.nuspirit.sk.

Bratislaval DANCE/THEATRE:Otvorená opona v Poluse / TheOpen Curtain in Polus – EachFriday and Saturday in Febru-ary, the Polus shopping mallgives a taste of dance, educa-tional or entertaining per-formances, this time offeringa programme by the TangereMoving Studio and the dramagroup STUDIO 12 .

Starts: February 25; Hlavnárotunda, Polus City Centre.Admission: free. More info:www.poluscitycenter. sk,www.kamdomesta.sk.

Bratislaval EXHIBITION: XX. Jubilejnýsalón Spoločnosti voľnýchvýtvarných umelcov / XXthJubilee Salon of the Associ-ation of Free Artists – This an-nual exhibition, now celebrat-ing 20 years, presents thework of 77 members of the as-sociation from the last threeyears in various genres.

Open: Tue-Sun 10:00-18:00until February 26; Domumenia, SNP Square 12. Ad-mission: free. More info:www.nocka.sk.

Bratislaval EXHIBITION: Jakub Jasi-ukiewicz: Canis Lupus – This

Polish artist presents, withinthe Crazycurators Biennale,his interactive video installa-tion Canis Lupus, plus twomore works: Dawka Letalna(Lethal Dose) and PogodaDucha (Peace of Mind).

Open: Tue-Fri 13:00-17:30until February 28; Space Gal-lery, Velehradská 7/A. Admis-sion: free. Tel: 0948/395-813;www.priestor.org.

Trnaval LIVE MUSIC: Boris ČellarTrio – This band, playingswing and bebop, consists ofB. Čellár on guitar and vocals,J. Griglák on bass, and Slove-nian G. Fticar on piano.

Starts: February 25, 20:00;Amfik café, Halenárska 20.Admission: €3. Tel: 0917/682-455; www.amfiteater.eu.

Central SLOVAKIA

Liptovský Mikulášl EXHIBITION: Príbehy / Stor-ies; Ruky / Hands – These ex-hibitions by Petra Cepková(from Slovakia) and GyorgyGáti (from Hungary) withinthe “Seeing European Culturethrough a Stranger’s Eyes”

series, show photos of Spanishand Finnish families made byauthors from completely dif-ferent environments.

Open: Tue-Sun 10:00-17:00until April 3; Dom fotografie,Tranovského 3. Admission:€1.50. Tel: 0905/288-717;www.domfoto.sk.

Martinl EXHIBITION: Trienáleumenia knihy / The Artist’sBook Triennial – This interna-tional exhibition aims to showcurrent trends in the so-calledauthor’s book, i.e. a book as anartistic subject, through 100works by 60 artists fromVisegrad Four countries.

Open: Tue-Sat 10:00-17:00,Sun 13:00-17:00 until March20; Turčianska galéria, Dax-nerova 2. Admission: €0.60 -€1.50. Tel: 043/4224-448;www.turiecgallery.sk.

Eastern SLOVAKIA

Košicel MUSICAL: Robin Hood – Thepopular story of a robberturned folk hero (or the otherway round) is transformedhere into a successful musicalby O. Soukup and G. Os-valdová, and choreographedand directed by J. Ďurovčík. V.N. Bárta and N. Pocisková arethe star cast members.

Starts: February 25-26,19:00; Divadlo Cassia, JumboCentre, Masarykova 2. Admis-sion: €24-€30. Tel: 0944/437-855; www.divadlocassia.sk.

Košicel LIVE MUSIC: Hauschka –This German musician (realname Volker Bertelmann), in-spired by Chopin and BrianEno, puts on a concert of so-called “prepared piano”, i.e. acombination of piano withvarious materials like gaffertape, kitchen foil, guitarstrings, etc..

Starts: February 25, 20:00;Kasárne Kulturpark, Kuku-čínova 2. Admission: €4-€5.Tel: 055/6854-299; www.kulturpark.sk.

By Zuzana Vilikovská

EVENTS COUNTRYWIDE

Pod nebeskými horami - Potulky strednou Áziou / Under the Ce-lestial Mountains - Wandering across Central Asia is an exhibi-tion of photographs by Danica Púry, showing at the ApolloBusiness Centre II, Turčianska 2, Bratislava, until February 25.The images represent her impressions from travels in an exoticand picturesque region. For more information, please visitwww.kamdomesta.sk. Photo: Danica Púry

The Secret Touch project will give a concert together with JurajRaši and Friends at 18:00 on February 27 in Stropkov’s TheatreHall. The Secret Touch brings a variety of exotic drums, such ascajone, conga and oud, as well as a unique resonating instru-ment called the hang drum, invented in 2000 in Switzerland andmade of two UFO-like specially produced steel metal plates. For€3.50, visitors can get to know what this sounds like. For moreinformation, please visit www.stropkov.sk.

Photo: Courtesy of GrandStudio

10 CULTURE

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Organizers: Slovak National Theatrein cooperation with the organizer of Crystal Wing

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

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

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

N A M E D A Y F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 1

Monday

Eleonóra

February 21

Tuesday

Etela

February 22

Wednesday

RomanRomana

February 23

Thursday

Matej

February 24

Friday

FrederikFrederika

February 25

Saturday

Viktor

February 26

Sunday

Alexander

February 27

February 21 – 27, 2011

Starting at the rootlets

A PROVERB has it that it isbetter to teach those in needhow to fish than to just givethem fish. The first approachhelps them forever while thesecond approach lasts for justa short while. It is likewisetrue that it is best to startevery project at its rootlets, itssmallest part.

The Divé maky (Wild Pop-pies) idea was born from thesetenets five years ago to helpyoung Roma children from os-tracised or socially handi-capped families to further de-velop their talents. The projectrecently expanded to a toughRoma settlement calledJarovnice - one of the biggestRoma settlements in centralEurope - where young people,determined to learn newthings, were chosen, trainedand prepared to join theirpeers from across Slovakia.

The first results from theDivé maky project were indi-vidual concerts and auctionsof children’s artworks but theproject has grown into thevery successful summer per-formance programme calledCigánsky Bašavel (GypsyFeast) and a winter mini-Bašavel in Jarovnice.

The Slovak Spectator spoketo Lucia Dohnalová, the pro-gramme manager of Divémaky about its history andcurrent activities.

The Slovak Spectator (TSS):How did this project begin?

Lucia Dohnalová (LD): TheDivé maky project was foundedin 2005 by Vladislava Dolníková,who had been working withRoma communities and in vo-lunteering long before then. Sheinvited Barbora Kohútiková tojoin in, and I came later, only in2007. Mrs. Dolníková, we callher Vlaďka, felt she was not able– and probably also not meant –to ‘solve’ the Roma issue but shewanted to help, and logically, asevery issue has its roots whichshould be first addressed, shesaw the beginning of the solu-tion in helping Roma children;helping them with education,as education is the first and the

last solution for many humanand global problems. So the ideafor a scholarship project to edu-cate young Roma was born andas many Roma are talented inmany areas the idea focused onfurther developing their tal-ents. Vlaďka was so persistentand she was so enthusiastic andconvincing that she managed toovercome the initial troublesand the mistrust and reluctancein both Roma and non-Romacommunities and made peoplebelieve in her idea. Currently,we have 69 children included inthe programme and altogetherwe have helped 213 youngpeople. Of course, we have hadsome dropouts, as the rules arequite strict and apart from con-tinuously developing their tal-ents, the children must alsoreach certain results at school.We support young musicians,singers, dancers, actors, ath-letes, artists and also some aca-demic talents who reallyachieve good grades and whoplan to study at higher levels.

TSS: How does the systemwork and who are thedonors?

LD: We have individualdonors for the children,mainly individuals who pickone student and follow him orher through the programme.We also have companies andagencies which mostly help usto finance various events andthe administrative operations– which is not a very thankfultask that probably would notbe attractive for individuals.But someone has to do thispart, as well.

TSS: The Cigánsky Bašavelnow takes place each Augustand in addition to the tradi-tional Roma feast it gives thechildren a chance to show offwhat they have learned.How did it come to happen?

LD: After each SummerAcademy in which the chil-dren are brought together inone place in Slovakia andtrained by renowned profes-sionals in the talent areas ofthe students, there was anauction of the children’sworks of art and a concert.When representatives fromour general partner, the Or-ange Foundation, saw the joyin our participants and theirjoint performance, the found-ation decided to organise abigger event for the widerpublic where the achieve-ments of the academy couldbe shown. We called our firstattempt the ‘Zero Year’ of theBašavel but after we saw theinterest of the audience, thenext year became the first realCigánsky Bašavel. That year,in addition to the children andtheir performances and art-works, we had bands likeCigánski diabli and Gypsy.cz,typical Roma meals, auctionsof paintings, a crafts marketand the overall atmosphere ofa merry Roma get-together.The Bašavel’s second year in2010 brought even morepeople and for 2011 we areplanning a day-long event.

TSS: And what about themini-Bašavel in Jarovnice?

LD: In the 2010/2011 schoolyear, we launched a pilot, a

wider Divé maky project,called Divé maky – šance prerómske talenty z celého Slov-enska (Wild Poppies – Chancesfor Roma Talents from theWhole of Slovakia). Out ofthousands of young peoplewho applied, we chose 100 ofthe most talented ones whowere then professionallytrained and prepared to per-form at the December mini-Bašavel. Twenty of theseyoung people will now contin-ue with other participantswithin Divé maky.

TSS: How do you find profes-sional artists to help? Pleasetell us about the project’s tu-tors.

LD: The first professionalswe asked to work with us werepainters Erik Binder and PeterKrajniak, and dancer LacoCmorej, who chose the firstparticipants at talent tests.Other artists, including actors,directors and dancers, sports-men, and not to forget PetraPolnišová who has becomeclosely identified with ourproject, were recruitedthrough personal contacts andrecommendations. We find tu-tors in the same way. Tutorsare either Roma or individualswho have long experiencewith the Roma community.

TSS: What are some of yourspecific results?

LD: We have several talen-ted participants now attend-ing secondary schools and wehave a few secondary schoolgraduates. And this is maybethe final aim of our effort: forthe children to be self-support-ing, to find a job and learn howto make a good living. Ourmain satisfaction comes fromseeing the children graduatingfrom secondary school, find-ing a good job, and in somecases also continuing theirstudies. We want them to seethe talents they have and howto use them for the good of all.What they choose to do with itis then up to them. We are gladto have had the chance toshow them a different lifestyleand to give them positive ex-amples and life-models.

For the full interview, seewww.spectator.sk.

BY ZUZANA VILIKOVSKÁSpectator staff

Players at the mini-Bašavel in Jarovnice. Photo: Courtesy of DM

New book analysesthe 2010 V4 elections

ON FEBRUARY 15, the sameday that the prime ministersof the Visegrad Group (V4)held their summit celebrat-ing the group’s 20th an-niversary, the Institute forPublic Affairs (IVO) releasedits most recent publication,offering a comprehensiveoverview of the 2010 nation-al elections held in each ofthe V4 countries while ana-lysing the impacts thatmight flow from thechanges in governments.

Visegrad Elections 2010:Domestic Impact and EuropeanConsequences, in English, wasedited by IVO’s OľgaGyárfášová and GrigorijMesežnikov. The individualtexts were written by Brit-ish, Slovak, Czech, Hungari-an and Polish authors andmost of the texts are exten-ded and updated versions ofpapers presented at an in-ternational conference con-vened by IVO in July 2010and entitled Free Elections20 Years After: Splendourand Misery of a CentralEuropean Dream.

The publication analysesthe results of the 2010 par-liamentary elections in Slov-akia, Hungary and the CzechRepublic as well as Poland’spresidential election in thesame year and explores theirimpact on regional coopera-tion and the foreign policy ofthe V4 countries.

“For the Visegrad Fourcountries these are the elec-tions held on the threshold ofthe third decade of democrat-ic development after the col-lapse of the communistregimes,” the editors wrotein the annotations to thebook. “However, after twodecades of transformationand reforms the societies incentral European countriesface a certain democracy fa-tigue accompanied by a pop-

ulist and nationalistbacklash.”

The volume begins witha comparative introductorystudy of two decades of freeelections in central Europe.

Part One then presentsfour individual country casestudies offering insights in-to the background and im-plications of the elections ondemocratic development inthe domestic context (stabil-ity of democratic institu-tions, democratic politicalculture, guarantees of polit-ical and minority rights).

Part Two focuses onSlovakia’s parliamentaryelections and Part Three ex-amines the impact of theVisegrad elections on thecountries' foreign policies.

The authors examinehow the new governmentsand authorities affect therole of the V4 countries asEU members, how theycontribute to the Europeandiscussion and to EU re-forms, their role in theEU’s enlargement andneighbourhood policiesand last but not least howthe new governments areshaping Visegrad regionalcooperation.

“Does Central Europe stillexist? Are recent politicaltrends common for all theVisegrad countries? Whatwill be the impact of recentelections on mutual rela-tions within the V4 group,especially on the relation-ship between Bratislava andBudapest? Prominent Slovakscholars together with theircolleagues from the neigh-bouring countries offer an-swers to these and otherquestions,” Jacques Rupnik,a political scientist, wrote inhis notes to the book.

Compiled by Spectator staff

from press reports

Charity ball to hostauction of cartoons

THE BUSINESS Leaders Char-ity Gala Ball which will debutthis year aspires to become atradition in Slovakia and be abright light within thecountry’s regular ball season.

The ball will be held onFebruary 26 in Bratislava’sRiver Park Kempinski Hotelunder the auspices of Eco-nomy Minister JurajMiškov and is expected todraw leaders of domesticand international busi-nesses in Slovakia.

The organisers promisethat the ball will have anatmosphere of the RoaringTwenties, the Golden Age ofHollywood and the era ofClark Gable, Greta Garbo,jazz and swing clubs, andmusic of those eras will beprovided by Ondrej Havelkaand His Melody Makers en-semble.

The organisers expect toattract a large number ofbusinesspeople.

“We would also wish towelcome as many foreignbusinessmen and investorsoperating in Slovakia aspossible,” stated KatarínaStrýčková, the president ofthe event’s organising com-mittee. “We want to helpthem to interact with theirSlovak partners in a relaxedand joyful manner.”

A special silent auction ofworks by Shooty, the well-known cartoonist of the Smedaily, will be held to supportthe work of Linka detskej is-toty – a professional 24/7telephone helpline for chil-dren that is celebrating its15th anniversary this year.

Compiled by Spectator staff

from press reports

Young dancers show off their steps at the Cigánsky Bašavel. Photo: Courtesy of Divé maky

11CULTURE February 21 – 27, 2011

Old Town dogs get30-day reprieve

THE OWNERSof dogs in theOld Town dis-trict of Bratis-lava weresupposed to

pay the annual dog tax be-fore January 31 but thespokesman for the district,Tomáš Halán, told the SITAnewswire that those whofailed to register their dogsby the deadline can do so un-til the end of Februarywithout being fined.

The fee is to be paid forevery dog older than sixmonths and the owner is ob-liged to register his or herpet within 30 days afterhousing the dog for 90 dayswithin Old Town. The nor-mal fee is €40 per year butOld Town has a reduced feeof €20 for dogs which havegone through basic obedi-ence training.

An old-age pensioner, aperson receiving a disability

pension or a physically han-dicapped person with onlyone dog need not pay the fee.Those who adopt a dog froma rescue shelter do not haveto pay for the first year.

In 2010, 1,928 dogs wereregistered in Bratislava‘s OldTown district with the dogtax bringing in more than€42,000. Old Town provides135 bins for disposal of dogexcrement that cost €1,813.But the district said itspends much more moneyon operating and maintain-ing the bins, for cleaningdoggie poop from paths andlawns, for public educationand for signs where dogs areprohibited.

A dog owner who fails toobtain a registration for hisor her dog by the end of Feb-ruary can be fined up to€165. By January 31, 2011,842 dog owners had paid thedog tax for 2011, amountingto nearly €30,000.

Man's best friend needs to be registered, at least inBratislava's Old Town district. Photo: TASR

Could it be fresh salmon? Cindy and her brother Ťapík celebrate their ninth birthday. Photo: TASR

A very eventful Januaryunfolds at Košice Zoo

KOŠICE Zoo haschosen a win-ning blueprintfor reconstruc-tion and newuse of Košice’s

Old Indoor Pool which willsoon become part of a newWater World (Vodný svet) atthe zoo complex. The designwas prepared by the team ofJuraj Furdík, Ivor Mečiar,Peter Lovich and KristínaŠťastná, and not only pre-serves the original purpose ofthe pool, for people, but com-bines it with another, de-tached water world for zoo an-imals. The jury evaluated 18proposals altogether butchose the winning plan be-cause it keeps the existingbuilding and its original usewhile adding an entirely newelement.

Košice Zoo also baked a bigbirthday cake in January to

honour its bear quintuplets,born nine years ago. Thequints are listed in the Guin-ness Book of Records becauseit is unusual for five bear cubsto be born at once and nearly amiracle when they all survive.

Two of the quints, Cindyand her brother Ťapík, en-joyed the cake but another ofthe quints, Mišo, and the oth-er bears at the zoo were still intheir winter hibernation andthe zoo tenders chose not towake them up. Two others ofthe quintuplets, Bubu andDazzle, were moved last yearto a luxury breeding facility atRanč Větrov near the Czechcity of Tábor. “We think theywill have better conditionsthere but we continue to mon-itor their physical and mentalstate,” Erich Kočner, the zoo'shead, told the SITA newswire.

"Two Pygmy Cameroongoats as well as one Cameroon

lamb were born at the zoo onthe last day of January," EvaMalešová of the zoo’s promo-tion and culture departmenttold the TASR newswire. Thezoo recorded more than142,000 visitors in 2010, SITAwrote. The public’s increasedinterest has also been reflec-ted in the number of ‘adopted’animals, which in the zoo’scase means a person or organ-isation financially contribut-ing to a chosen animal andthen being kept informedabout its well-being.

In January Košice Zoo alsobecame a member of Interna-tional Zoo Educators (IZE), anassociation that provides zooswith up-to-date informationand technologies for educa-tional purposes. Kočner saidthe association particularlysupports the use of live exhib-its as a modern form of envir-onmental education.

Slovakia's commemorative V4 stampSLOVAK Post issued a stampon February 11 to commemor-ate the 20th anniversary of thefounding of the VisegradGroup (V4) with a nominalvalue of €0.90. The stamp isalso available with a numis-matic cover that contains amemorial €2 coin issued bythe National Bank of Slovakia.

The coin is particularlyspecial because its memorialmotif on the national side ofthe coin bears the geographicoutlines of the four countriesthat make up the V4 – theCzech Republic, Hungary, Po-land and Slovakia. The borderoutlines are overlapped by theletter “V” denoting theVisegrad Group.

The stamp has two handswith open palms with the fin-gers of one hand forming theletter “V” and the other handshowing four fingers for theRoman numeral IIII along

with the Arabic numerals 2and 0 written in the palm ofeach hand to commemoratethe 20 years of the V4.

A First Day Cover (FDC)was issued together withthe stamp and its graphicform has the letter symbol ofV4 as its main motif. Themotif of the V4 postmark is apictogram of the VisegradGroup countries.

Barnabás Baticz designedthe stamp and Slovak artistRobert Jančovič designed theFDC and postmark. The stampcan be used for domestic aswell as international mail.

The Visegrad Group wasformed in the wake of the post-1989 changes in central Europewhen the countries decided toforge closer cooperation withthe aim of “returning” to

Europe. At a meeting of repres-entatives from Czechoslov-akia, Poland and Hungaryconvened in Bratislava inMay 1990, the groundworkwas laid for developing thistrilateral cooperation. OnFebruary 15, 1991, presidentsof the three countries signedthe Visegrad Declaration.

After the separation ofCzechoslovakia and the inde-pendence of the Slovak andCzech Republics in 1993, thetrilateral cooperation wastransformed into the currentV4 format. At a May 1999summit held in Bratislava, theprime ministers of the V4countries agreed to deepen co-operation in all areas of mutu-al interest and to offer eachother support in joining theEU, the Ministry of Foreign Af-fairs wrote on Slovak Post’swebsite for avid philatelists,www.pofis.sk.

Youngwines

blessedTRNAVAArchbishopRóbert Bezákblessed asampling ofyoung wines

offered by vintners fromTrnava and its vicinity onJanuary 28. This traditionalevent has become a way tothank those who growSlovakia's grapes and thewinemakers who turn theharvest into wine. It alsosymbolically opens the newviticulture season.

Klára Ondrušová ofTrnava's city council toldthe SITA newswire that theviticulturists brought about70 samples of wine and thatthey traditionally bringthree bottles and after theblessing one bottle is takenback to their wine cellarswhile the other two bottlesare offered to their col-leagues for degustation.

In addition to tasting theresults of their work, theparticipants heard TiborRuman of the SmallCarpathians Wine Route(Malokarpatská vínna cesta)present his evaluation of the2010 season as well as MartinHrubala, the historian of theSmall Carpathian Museumin Pezinok, speak about theviticulture traditions ofTrnava. The blessing wasopen only to professionalsbut Eduard Krištofovič, thechairman of the Trnava As-sociation of Wine Friends,reminded the public thatVíno Tirnavia, the local winefair, will be held in March.

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AROUND SLOVAKIAcompiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports

12 FEATUREFebruary 21 – 27, 2011

Celebrating 20 years of the Visegrad Group. Photo: Sl. Pošta