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NEWS

Drugs bust goes awryA Czech truck driver spentChristmas in a Turkishprison cell after a bungledsting operation involvingthe Slovak police.

pg 2

Making language legalThe deputy prime ministerfor human rights and na-tional minorities, RudolfChmel, spoke to the SlovakSpectator about his workredrafting language lawsand addressing issues fa-cing Roma citizens.

pg 3

OPINION

Misguided dutySMK leader József Berényi'sapplication for Hungariancitizenship poses morequestions than it answersabout how Slovakia's eth-nic Hungarians are repres-ented.

pg 5

BUSINESS FOCUS

Tweeting journalistsSocial media, most signific-antly Facebook and Twitter,are changing the wayjournalists do their job andthe way news is generatedand delivered.

pg 6

Analogue TV to endDigital TV will replace ana-logue terrestrial broadcastsby the end of 2012, but thereare some complaints aboutinsufficient informationduring the transition.

pg 7

CULTURE

Citizens of the world“When we know manyforeign languages we be-come citizens of theworld," Georges Lemieux,chargé d’affaires of the Ca-nadian Embassy, toldZvolen students at a recentdiscussion.

pg 11

Privatisationreturns tothe agenda

THE CHANGE of drivers at the wheel ofgovernment in July re-opened the issue ofprivatisation in Slovakia. Compared to thenegative attitude of former prime ministerRobert Fico, the Iveta Radičová govern-ment wants to sell stakes held by the statein selected companies. But in its four-yearprogramme it has excluded privatisation ofwhat it calls strategic companies.

Even though any final decision has yetto be made, analysts, experts and politi-cians are already calling for the proceedsfrom privatisation to be used to patch upholes in the old-age pension saving schemeand in the general government budget.

Many analysts support the privatisa-tion plans of the Radičová government.

“Basically there is no reason for thestate to own any stakes in companieswhose main activity is the sale of serviceswhich can be secured by the privatesphere,” Juraj Karpiš, analyst with the In-stitute of Economic and Social Studies(INESS) told The Slovak Spectator. “Mak-ing business in these segments [heating,telecommunications, transport, etc.] doesnot belong among the basic functions ofthe state.”

See SALE pg 4

Epiphany is the end of holiday season for Slovaks. According to tradition, the legendary "three kings" visit Slovakhouseholds to bring their wishes to families. Orthodox Christians celebrate Christmas on that day. Photo: TASR

BY JANA LIPTÁKOVÁSpectator staff

RTVS arrives;Nižňanský leaves

THE CONTOURS of Slovakia’s hugenew public broadcaster are nowemerging from the remains of itspredecessors, Slovak Radio (SRo)and Slovak Television (STV), as partof what the country’s culture minis-ter has called a substantial reform ofthe public media in Slovakia. Thelegislation to create Radio and Tele-vision of Slovakia (RTVS) came intoforce on January 1, 2011. PresidentIvan Gašparovič vetoed it twice, butparliament overrode his objections.

RTVS now has an interim dir-ector in the form of MiloslavaZemková, who was previously the

director of SRo. Her deputies ĽubošMachaj, formerly SRo programmedirector, and Daniela Vašinová,formerly financial director of SRo,will manage television and radio re-spectively. The interim manage-ment will now produce a provision-al budget and handle all the admin-istrative tasks related to the mergerof the two broadcasters.

“During this transition periodwe have to carry out a large numberof administrative and legal stepslinked to the establishment of theinstitution since it is not emergingon a green field but as a result of themerger of two dissolvedinstitutions,” Zemková told SRo onJanuary 1. “It means that the newinstitution is taking over all the ob-ligations, receivables, legal status,contracts, contractual relations andall the employees, thus it is a suc-cessor of those two institutions.”

See RTVS pg 2

BY BEATA BALOGOVÁSpectator staff

Steady as she goes, say economists

NO OMINOUS economic predic-tions for Slovakia are being offeredby market watchers for 2011. Aslight slowdown in the economicgrowth rate from last year, a mod-erate improvement – but no mir-acles – in the job market, lower pub-lic spending and other effects offiscal consolidation are likely to bethe main characteristics of 2011, ac-cording to the analysts, who re-main rather cautious about boldforecasts. They agree that this yearmight provide fertile soil for eco-

nomic reforms, though the auster-ity measures intended to restorethe public finances may dampen re-formers’ zeal.

Nevertheless, Slovakia will con-tinue depending on the vigour of itslargest trading partners and onwhether these can supply sufficientdemand. This is because the eco-nomy in 2011 will be propelled byforeign demand, Poštová Bankaanalyst Eva Sadovská told The Slov-ak Spectator.

Domestic demand might besomewhat stronger than in 2010 butunemployment will remain relat-ively high, and this will be reflectedin consumer behaviour, she added.

“There is a positive aspect aswell: unemployment will show a

declining tendency, albeit gradualand slow,” Sadovská said. “But itwill not return to pre-crisis levels;at least three to five years will benecessary.”

What will really slow the eco-nomy is the trumpeted consolida-tion of public finances, she said.The economy should still continueto grow by more than 3 percent, arate at which the economy is stillable to create new jobs, accordingto Sadovská.

The central bank expects eco-nomic growth to be 3 percent thisyear, and the Finance Ministry’sprediction is 3.3 percent growth,compared to last year’s 4 percent.

See ECON pg 4

BY BEATA BALOGOVÁSpectator staff

Ahead: a yearof 'everyday

politics'

IN CONTRAST with last year, 2011 is notexpected to be studded with particularevents that have the potential to becomepolitical or media spectacles – or at leastthat is what political observers are fore-casting based on what they see on the hori-zon of the dawning new year. This does notmean, however, that some significantpolitical changes are not in the pipeline.

The first thing that pops up when look-ing back at 2010 is the parliamentary elec-tion in June that caused a significantpower change in Slovakia’s top politicalposts. And if the past year from its very be-ginning could be earmarked as “the year ofelections”, then 2011 could be character-ised as the year of election follow-throughand the initiation of reforms that thecentre-right political parties promised toenact after they took power from the coali-tion government led by Robert Fico.

See 2011 pg 3

BY MICHAELA TERENZANISpectator staff

Vol. 17, No. 1 Monday, January 10, 2011 - Sunday, January 16, 2011

FOCUSof this issue

On sale nowOn sale now FOCUSof this issue

MEDIA AND PR

Interior Ministry beefs up policing

THE INTERIOR Ministry hasintroduced a new system forprotecting public order inareas suffering from elevatedcrime levels. The SITA news-wire reported that the sys-tem, begun on January 1, is“directed primarily at Romasettlements that have had ahigh number of criminal of-fences and infringements ofpeaceful coexistence”.

The ministry will signific-antly strengthen special po-lice units in two phases, inJanuary and in March. Thenumber of police officers inmotorised patrols will rise by175 and the number of SWATteam members will rise by 25in regions with elevated crimerates – Prešov, Košice andBanská Bystrica, SITA wrote.

In Prešov Region, 15 moreRoma security specialists willwork in Roma communitiesfighting crime and loan-sharking.

The ministry stated thatunder the new system policeofficers who in the past spenttime in their offices will nowbe deployed on the streets.

Mayors of towns and vil-lages which have had prob-lems in the past said, accord-ing to the Sme daily, thatthey welcome the intensi-fied police activity but doubtwhether repressive meas-ures will be the appropriatesolution unless legislativechanges are also made.

In Ostrovany, a municip-ality divided by a wall thatseparates a Roma settlementfrom the rest of the village,the number of petty crimes,especially thefts, has de-creased but the mayor, CyrilRevák, believes this is due tothe wall rather than becauseof an increased number ofmotorised police patrols.

The municipal council ofOstrovany is now consider-ing extending the150-metre-long wall, Smewrote.

The Ostrovany wall wasfeatured in news reportsshortly before Christmaswhen the word “Prepáčte”(Sorry), written in large let-ters by an unknown author,appeared on the wall.

Court rules on Kotleba leaflet case

A BANSKÁ Bystrica districtcourt has stopped furthercriminal prosecution ofMarián Kotleba, the leader ofthe People’s Party - Our Slov-akia (ĽSNS) and former leaderof the far-right organisationSlovenská Pospolitosť, in acase involving text writtenin election leaflets in 2009,the SITA newswire reported.

The prosecutor has ap-pealed the court’s verdictand it will be reviewed by theBanská Bystrica RegionalCourt, SITA wrote.

The prosecutor filed thecharges against Kotleba fortext in an election leaflet dis-tributed in 2009, when Ko-tleba ran for the post of pres-

ident of Banská Bystrica Self-Governing Region. In theleaflet Kotleba wrote that hewould “eliminate unfair ad-vantages for not only theGypsy parasites”. The pro-secutor claimed that Kotlebahad committed a criminal of-fence by defaming a nation,race or religion.

According to a blog pos-ted by Slovenská Pospolitosť,the court wrote in its rulingthat the prosecution’s casewas unjustified and the filecontained no evidence prov-ing that a criminal offencehad been committed.

“I consider the evidencesufficient,” the prosecutortold SITA.

PM, FM divvy up EU affairs

PRIME Minister IvetaRadičová and Foreign Min-ister Mikuláš Dzurinda haveagreed on the division of de-cision-making powersbetween their offices on EU-related matters. Under thenew arrangement, the EUagenda will be handled attwo levels within the cabin-et, the SITA newswire re-ported.

Top-level political de-cisions will be coordinatedby the prime minister andher office and other issues tobe considered at the level ofstate secretaries and generaldirectors will be coordinatedby the Foreign Affairs Min-istry, including tasks suchas incorporation of EU direct-ives, regulations and similarundertakings.

The original draft stat-utes for the Ministerial

Council for EU Affairs, whichthe Foreign Affairs Ministryhad sent for interdepart-mental review, proposed amodel under which theprime minister would nothave had the right to vote,reportedly causing discordbetween Radičová andDzurinda. According to RadoBaťo, Radičová’s spokesman,the division of responsibilit-ies is based on an agreementbetween the two politicians.

Baťo explained to SITAthat the need to change themodel of dealing with EU is-sues at cabinet level surfacedbecause Slovakia’s currentcabinet does not have adeputy prime minister dir-ectly responsible forEuropean affairs.

Compiled by Spectator staff

from press reports

Bungled drugs bustlands driver in prison

ONE YEAR after a Slovak cit-izen unwittingly carried ex-plosives aboard a plane fromPoprad to Dublin following apolice exercise went wrong,the Slovak authorities haveagain found themselves fa-cing international criticismafter a failed operation landedan innocent truck driver in aTurkish prison.

This time it was not atraining exercise but an in-

ternational anti-drugs opera-tion which went awry, spoil-ing the Christmas of theCzech truck driver, who wasarrested by police in Turkey.Following Czech authorities’demands for an explanationfrom Slovakia, Slovak policehave tried to blame theirTurkish counterparts.

The international anti-drugs sting was launched onDecember 10, 2010. A Czechtruck set off from a ware-house in Dunajská Streda,loaded with what the driverbelieved were 17 tonnes of dis-infectant.

In fact, the truck was car-

rying acetic anhydride, achemical used to refinemorphine into heroin. Ac-cording to the Interior Min-istry, the substance had beenstolen by an internationaldrugs gang from a factory inEurope and could have helpedproduce some 400 kilogramsof heroine, which the gangwas planning to sell back toEuropean countries includingSlovakia.

The ministry said such anamount would constitutearound 10 million doses ofheroin, sufficient to supply10,000 drug users for a year.The street price of the final

drugs was estimated at about€16.6 million.

Zdeněk Pekara, the driverwho unwittingly drove thesubstance across Europe toTurkey, was arrested upon hisarrival at an Istanbul ware-house on December 24 andonly released after severaldays, once the circumstanceshad been explained.

“Imagine you are going tounload the cargo, you arrive atthe customs office and there50 people jump on you,”Pekara said, as quoted by theAktualne.sk news server.

See AWRY pg 9

BY MICHAELATERENZANISpectator staff

RTVS: No major reshuffles in pipelineContinued from pg 1

The interim management said thatthere are no major reshuffles in thepipeline, but nevertheless some per-sonnel changes are due within SlovakTelevision.

The merger was proposed by CultureMinister Daniel Krajcer to resolve whathe called the catastrophic financialsituation within STV. Krajcer said thatthe creation of RTVS should, in just thefirst year of its existence, save the statebudget €1.65 million. The overall debt ofSTV for next year is expected to reach€36 million.

Krajcer also called the merger thefirst step in the reform of the public me-dia in Slovakia, which should last aboutthree years and involve a change in itsfinancing. As of 2012, the public broad-casters will no longer receive incomefrom so-called concessionary fees paidby all electricity consumers in Slovakia.The reform will culminate with the twobroadcasters moving into a single build-ing.

Zemková, appointed by Speaker ofParliament Richard Sulík, will act as in-terim director until the first regular dir-ector of RTVS is appointed by the SlovakParliament. Sulík explained his choiceof Zemková by saying that SRo underher had been better managed than STVunder Štefan Nižňanský, who has nowleft the organisation, the SITA news-wire wrote.

Selection of the permanent new dir-ector is not expected to be an easy under-taking. Zemková has said she considersdiscussion about her eventual candidacyto be preliminary.

The parliamentary committee forculture and media will publish a call forcandidates by January 10 via RTVS pro-grammes and the website of the SlovakParliament. Candidates will have 15 daysto submit their applications.

Among the selection criteria for thedirector of the new broadcaster are a uni-versity education and at least five years ofexperience in top management. The par-liamentary media committee will inter-view candidates and submit recommend-ations to parliament so that deputies canselect the new director via a public vote,possibly in February. The same selectionprocedure will apply to members of thetop body of the new broadcaster, the RTVSCouncil, according to SITA.

The provisional budget, set at one-twelfth of the combined 2011 budgets of

both broadcasters, will be in place untilthe new RTVS boss shapes the newbudget and gets it approved by the9-member RTVS Council.

Zemková’s right-hand man Machajconfirmed on January 4 that the televi-sion division will experience some reor-ganisation, but that no personnelchanges are expected at Slovak Radio. Re-ferring to his choices for the replacementmanagement team at the television divi-sion, Machaj said he would work withpeople he could trust.

However, he excluded any significantchanges to the TV programme scheduleand said that only programmes that arestrictly linked to the temporary budgetmight be affected.

Zemková described the period thatthe public broadcasters now face as “ademanding austerity period, which willlast until the joint budget is approved”.She also noted that her deputy Machaj isnot entitled to sign contracts as this issomething which only she has been giv-en the authority to do.

According to Zemková, analysis of ex-isting contracts will follow soon after theadministrative tasks linked to the estab-lishment of RTVS are wrapped up.

“I will not carry out and I could notcarry out my own systemic concept of theoperation of the new institution becauseas an interim director I do not have thetools for that – only the newly elected dir-ector-general will be able to createthose,” Zemková said as quoted by SITA.

Meanwhile, the local media has re-ported that Nižňanský signed somelarge contracts in December on behalfof STV, just before leaving office.Machaj confirmed that these dealswould be analysed.

Nižňanský’s actions as director hadlong evoked concern among some me-dia professionals and even though Kra-jcer stressed last year that the mergerwas not about removing Nižňanskýfrom his position, the parties of the rul-ing coalition have never hidden theirhostility towards him. Representativesof other Slovak media outlets have spec-ulated that the public-service televisionbroadcaster was on the verge of collapse.

The former management of STVeven sued some journalists over reportsabout its financial situation. Zemkovásuggested that RTVS would withdrawsome of the lawsuits.

“We do not intend to swamp pro-secution bodies and the courts withsenseless proceedings against freelyexpressed opinion,” she said.

Krajcer’s plan was criticised bythose concerned that merging the fin-ancially troubled STV with the relat-ively healthy SRo would negatively af-fect the public-service radio stationsunder SRo’s wing. Media experts,however, have stated that the situationin STV had become untenable and hadcalled for some kind of action, thoughsome would have preferred a muchslower pace.

2 NEWSJanuary 10 – January 16, 2011

Acting RTVS director Miloslava Zemková took over at STV. Photo: Sme - V. Šimíček

Making language legal

ONCE you fasten one buttonon your vest incorrectly, thenyour whole vest is obviouslybuttoned-up wrong, saidRudolf Chmel, Slovakia'sdeputy prime minister forhuman rights and nationalminorities, in describing thetensions that have surroundedSlovakia’s State Language Act.

His office began officiallyworking with stronger powerson November 1 and among itsfirst legislative initiatives isan amendment to the law onminority languages whichwas presented for public dis-cussion shortly before the endof 2010. The right to use one’smother tongue as well as theregularly erupting conflictsbetween Slovaks and ethnicHungarians and the problemsof socially-excluded Romacommunities were among thetopics Chmel spoke aboutwith The Slovak Spectator justbefore the Christmas holidays.

The Slovak Spectator (TSS):The State Language Act,which caused much tensionbetween Hungarians andSlovaks, was recentlyamended. How did you per-ceive the emergence of theproblem?

Rudolf Chmel (RCh): TheState Language Act emergedas a problem when it was firstpassed by the Vladimír Mečiargovernment in 1995 because ithad an evident anti-minority,and mainly anti-Hungarian,tone to it, including the sanc-tions. But the pre-history ofthe situation goes back to thebeginning of 1990s when cer-tain nationalists came upwith idea of protection of thestate language, as if somebodywas still trying to take it awayfrom us. Generally, Slovaksstill seem to be living in the19th century, in the Romanticera, when the languageneeded to be fought for, orlater when Magyarisation wasa part of the state policies. Buttoday the Slovak language is anatural part of the identity ofSlovaks and as such it needsno repressive legal mechan-isms for its protection. It’s ba-sically a dispute betweenthose who want to protect andfight for the language andthose who want to care for itand cultivate it. If there is athreat to Slovak [language],then it is because of low-browSlovaks and not Hungariansand other minorities.

The Mikuláš Dzurindagovernment liberalised thelaw in 1999 and passed a lawon minority languages, soformally these two problemswere modified, but the truth isthat both laws were imperfect– and therefore they neededand will need to be improved.In 2009 the Robert Fico gov-ernment again toughened the

law and practically sent itback to the Mečiar times. Thecurrent ruling coalition is try-ing to harmonise both lawsand liberalise them – that is,moderate the protection andincrease the care for both thestate language and the minor-ity languages.

TSS: How did you view thetension between Hungari-ans and Slovaks that sur-faced because of the StateLanguage Act?

RCh: The Hungarianminority handles the lan-guage issue differently thanother minorities, as the Hun-garians, similar to Slovaks,still live with the belief thatthe language is the most im-portant attribute of their na-tional identity. That is true,we only realise it less whentalking about minorities.When it comes to language, aminority is naturally morevulnerable and endangeredbecause it lives in the envir-onment of the majority lan-guage and in most cases it isthe minority language ratherthan the majority languagethat is assimilated.

In 2009, the State Lan-guage Act amendment was re-introduced into the Slovak-Hungarian national and inter-state agenda, since the re-pressive features of theamendment were mainly dir-ected against the Hungarianminority. The Hungarian gov-ernment interfered and theballoon went up. At that timeI believed it was unnecessary,as was part of the Hungariancard which the Fico-led gov-ernment played in bilateral re-lations with Hungary. Thatwas why we believed that therestrictive measures shouldbe done away with. After all,there were relevant interna-tional recommendations tosupport our stance.

TSS: But the sanctionswhich you criticised in the

past remain in the law,even though in a more lim-ited way. Are you satisfiedwith the solution that par-liament recently passed?

RCh: We came up withthe request to remove the re-strictive measures in both theState Language Act and thelaw on minority languagessince the two laws actuallyare two sides of one issue andtherefore they need to becompatible.

The amendment to theState Language Act was pro-posed by the culture ministeras it falls under his depart-ment. There is even a statelanguage department at theCulture Ministry overseeingthe correct usage of Slovak.That was what I cancelledwhen I served as culture min-ister [in 2002-2005, ed. note]because it seemed too muchfor the ministerial officials tosay what is right and what iswrong in the language. For allthat, we’ve got a paramountacademic authority, theĽudovít Štúr Institute of Lin-guistics at the SlovakAcademy of Sciences, as wellas several university depart-ments. It’s not the officials’and politicians’ place to codi-fy the language. Apart fromthat, I believe that [the StateLanguage Act] should be a lawwith symbolic value only andit shouldn’t be used for anyrepressions or threats.

So it was necessary toamend the law, but that’seasier said than done, as oldnationalist prejudices andtraumas which have been atwork in Slovak-Hungarian re-lations for decades remainpresent in the Slovak politicalconsciousness, both national-ist and democratic – the onethat currently rules the coun-try. Now, nationalists fromSmer and the Slovak NationalParty (SNS) say that the law isservile to Budapest and on theother hand the Hungariannationalists criticise the

Slovak government, sayingthat the law continues perse-cuting the minorities. So thenationalists usually departfrom the same platforms,only standing against eachother. But I believe that if thesanctions were dropped com-pletely, the law would berather optimal.

Using the term ‘sanction’or ‘fine’ in relation to lan-guage is a drastic interven-tion into society, as languageis a very intimate issue, avery personal part of the hu-man identity as well as of theidentity of a bigger com-munity. Any repressions inthat area interfere with hu-man dignity. After our latestamendment, the repressionswill only be used in officialmatters, very formally, but Ithink they are completely re-dundant there.

There has been signific-ant relief in several areas inpublic and official commu-nication, for instance in self-government offices or in po-lice offices. The relief is evenbigger in the area of culture.But the law still doesn’t con-tain all the relief that mightbe necessary.

TSS: Now you will also at-tempt to amend the law onminority languages, whichshould in many respectswiden the right of minorit-ies to use their mothertongues – a measure that of-ten encounters resistancefrom politicians in Slov-akia. Why is there a lack ofwillingness among Slovakpoliticians for this?

RCh: It is necessary toamend the law on minoritylanguages since we amendedthe law on the state languageand these two laws must becompatible. We also set asone of our aims a more com-prehensive concept of minor-ity policy in legal terms. Wewant to do away with the dis-cord between the two lan-guages, as the State LanguageAct often interfered into theusage of minority languages,especially after the Fico-ledgovernment amended it.That needed to be removedbecause using minority lan-guages is governed by the lawon minority languages andnot by the State LanguageAct. International recom-mendations spoke in thesame voice that this discordneeds to be removed.

To make the two lawscompatible, there are nowsanctions introduced in thedraft amendment to the lawon minority languages, be-cause there are sanctions aswell in the State LanguageAct. If a minority memberisn’t able to enforce his or herright to speak a minority lan-guage, they can complainabout the institution in ques-tion. But I personally believethat there should not be sanc-tions in any of the laws.

See RCh pg 11

BY MICHAELATERENZANISpectator staff

Rudolf Chmel Photo: TASR

2011: More justicereforms to comeContinued from pg 1

According to DarinaMalová, the head of the de-partment of political sci-ences at the Faculty of Philo-sophy of Comenius Uni-versity, the year will be filledwith “common, everydaypolitics”, which will revolvearound relations betweenthe governing coalition andthe opposition, bilateral re-lations with Hungary, aswell as on the country’s eco-nomic performance and de-velopments within theEuropean Union.

Grigorij Mesežnikov, apolitical analyst and presid-ent of the Institute for Pub-lic Affairs (IVO), highlightedconsolidation of public fin-ances, a process which waslaunched by the new gov-ernment last year, as thekey agenda that will con-tinue in 2011, both in thedomestic context as well aswithin the broader contoursof the eurozone.

Other changes thatMesežnikov expects to un-fold in 2011 are an increase ingovernment transparencyand reforms in the judicialarena. Mesežnikov said judi-cial reforms will be particu-larly important for Slovakia,adding that “it will not havethe form of some spectacularevent, but rather a process”.

According to a survey re-cently released by IVO, thereis less public perception oftension in social and eco-nomic areas.

People are less criticaland not as concerned abouteconomic reforms but arerather set to accept themeasures that the govern-ment has been putting inplace, Mesežnikov said in aninterview with The SlovakSpectator.

Relations between Slov-akia and Hungary, whichbecame problematic duringthe term of the past govern-ment, especially after theSlovak parliament passedthe State Language Act andthe Hungarian parliamentamended its citizenship le-gislation to allow Hungari-ans living outside Hungaryto be more easily grantedHungarian citizenship, arenot expected to be particu-larly troublesome in 2011.

“Hungary has got its owneconomic and politicalproblems,” Mesežnikov toldThe Slovak Spectator. “It is apresiding country in the EUthat now finds itself underthe fire of criticism forpassing some laws that arenot in line with theEuropean spirit.”

The centre-right coali-tion that currently governsSlovakia under the leader-ship of Prime Minister IvetaRadičová is generally expec-ted to be stable.

“There have been someconcussions in the past, butthey never grew into a coali-

tion crisis,” Mesežnikovsaid, adding that the rulingcoalition managed even inhard situations to reach anagreement, particularly inthe area of practical politics –deciding on laws.

“Most laws that the co-alition agreed on have beenpassed,” he said. “And at thispractical-politics level I ex-pect the coalition to contin-ue being united.”

Malová noted that stabil-ity within any coalition ishard to predict but given thefact that two new politicalparties are in the coalitionmany disagreements couldoccur, resulting in internalcoalition disputes.

But she said that neednot be a disadvantage. “Itcan, in the end, be of benefitfor citizens,” Malová toldThe Slovak Spectator.

She added that the gov-ernment and its stabilitywill depend to a large extenton the tactics which thelargest opposition party,Smer, headed by Robert Fico,uses in its political man-oeuvring. She thought itvery probable that Smerwould try to use every op-portunity to discredit thegovernment and create situ-ations that will intensifyconflict and disagreementwithin the coalition.

Most recently, the gov-erning coalition experienceddiscord when parliamentfailed to select the coalition’scandidate for general pro-secutor, after six MPs fromthe coalition did not vote inline with their parties’agreement in a secret ballot.It was only by a stroke ofluck that the opposition-en-dorsed candidate, incum-bent Dobroslav Trnka, wasnot selected.

Mesežnikov said trustbetween the coalition part-ners was shaken by this fail-ure but argued that it wasnot a real coalition crisis butrather an attempt to corrupta group of coalition MPs.

Malová noted that theforthcoming vote on thenew general prosecutor,which will most likely beheld under new rules in apublic vote, is the most sig-nificant political event thatoverlaps into 2011 from lastyear and will continue influ-encing the political sceneuntil it is resolved.

“It will be a test for theruling parties,” Malová said.

Mesežnikov agreed thatthe vote will be an importantmoment for the coalition buthe believes it is very likelythat once the rules for thevote are changed thecoalition’s endorsed candid-ate will be selected.

“I cannot imagine thatafter they change the way ofvoting there will not be acoalition majority thatwould select the generalprosecutor,” Mesežnikovsaid.

3January 10 – January 16, 2011NEWS

Ministry addresses EC over e-tollTHE TRANSPORT Ministryhas sent a response to theEuropean Commission, ad-dressing objections it raisedregarding the method Slov-akia used to pick the supplierof its electronic highway tollsystem. Slovakia’s responsewas not published.

Ministry spokespersonMartin Krajčovič reiteratedthat Transport Minister JánFigeľ would advocateSlovakia’s interests in thecase, despite the fact that hehad criticised the tender asbeing overpriced when hewas an opposition leader, theSITA newswire reported. Thetender was managed by theprevious government.

The EC is concerned thatSlovakia may have violatedEU regulations in the tenderfor procurement of the elec-tronic toll collection systemby discriminating againstsome bidders and thus pre-venting competition.

The National HighwayCompany (NDS) announced

the public tender for an oper-ator of an electronic toll col-lection system in September2007, with the estimatedvalue of the contract amount-ing to €664 million. InDecember 2007, it seemedthat only three of the initialeight bidders would competefor the tender, after the NDSexcluded three bidders fromthe running in November,claiming they did not complywith the technical specifica-tions. After signing a con-tract, some contractual termswere significantly revised.

The EC said that if thechanges had been introducedat the beginning of the pro-curement process and parti-cipating applicants made fa-miliar with them, they couldhave had submitted alternat-ive bids and more applicantscould have been included inthe bidding process.

NDS is alleged to have vi-olated the principles of equaltreatment and non-discrim-ination.

Final deficit for 2010 announcedTHE STATE budget ended lastyear with a deficit of €4.436billion. This means it grewby €925 million month-on-month in December and by€1.645 billion when com-pared to the deficit posted in2009, the Finance Ministryannounced on Monday,January 3, as reported by theTASR newswire.

Nevertheless, the finalfigures were better than hadbeen forecast in the revisedstate budget that the FinanceMinistry released at the endof November 2010.

That had raised the ori-ginal deficit forecast of€3.746 billion to as much as€4.54 billion.

State revenues reached€10.901 billion by the end ofDecember, or 91.9 percent ofthe revised expected revenue

(€11.867 billion). They grewby 3.4 percent year-on-year,TASR wrote.

Overall state expendit-ures grew by 15 percent year-on-year to €15.337 billion,which represented 93.5 per-cent of the revised plan(€16.407 billion).

Finance Minister IvanMikloš explained the needfor the revised budget bypointing to the discrepanciesbetween the budget adoptedby the previous governmentand economic reality, sayingthat the previously planneddeficit of 5.5 percent was nolonger realistic since the ac-tual figure was approaching7.8 percent of GDP.

Compiled by Spectator staff

from press reports

SALE: Reports target several state firmsContinued from pg 1

“Moreover, the state is anineffective administrator ofcompanies with regards to dis-cordance in the motivations oftaxpayers and state officialsinstalled into managerial posi-tions. This is why ineffectivehandling of public funds,cronyism and corruption oc-curs more often in statecompanies,”Karpiš added.

The analyst believes thatprivatisation would, on the onehand, mean an end to ineffect-ive management in these com-panies and, on the other hand,privatisation proceeds wouldcover part of the state’s ex-penses.

“This means that on con-stant public expenditures, wewill have to pay less in taxesand levies,” said Karpiš. “Thuswe welcome privatisation.”

After several waves ofprivatisation following the fallof the communist regime, thestate still holds stakes in com-panies operating in transport,energy, heating, forestry,health care, postal services andother segments. It holds themeither via the National Prop-erty Fund (FNM) state privat-isation agency or via individualministries responsible for vari-ous sectors of the economy. Inthe recent past, Bratislava Air-port and the railway compan-ies have been most frequentlycited as potential targets forprivatisation.

Both the FNM and the Eco-nomy Ministry have alreadysubmitted reports about theoperation of companies inwhich they hold stakes. Nowthe reports are awaiting dis-cussion by the Slovak cabinet.

Unlike the FNM, the min-istry does not directly proposeany privatisation.

The FNM proposes to sellits stakes in Slovak Telekom,heating plants as well in re-gional bus companies. Basedon current nominal values,this could raise hundreds ofmillions of euros. The FNMsees the sale of the stakes as away to raise money from the

sale itself as well as by the re-moval of the public sector’s in-fluence and thus the accelera-tion of commercial activitiesin respective segments, ac-cording to the report. Theprivatisation agency also pro-poses the sale of the stakes aspart of the government’s plansto dissolve the FNM itself.

According to the ministryreport, the Ministry of Eco-nomy holds 100-percent stakesin two companies: the NuclearDecommissioning Company(JAVYS) and the crude-oilpipeline operator Transpetrol.It also holds a 34-percent sharein Slovak Telekom.

“All the companies reportin the long run a positive eco-nomic performance and a pos-itive return on capital,” theministry wrote in its report, ascited by TASR on January 3.“They pay out dividends intothe state budget annually,apart from Transpetrol. Thecompanies’ results do not in-dicate an unambiguous needfor their privatisation.”

On the other hand, theFNM proposes to sell the15-percent stake, with a nom-inal value of €130 million, thatit holds in Slovak Telekom. Amajority stake of 51 percent isowned by private operatorDeutsche Telekom.

“From the viewpoint of theFNM, the sale of the stake

presents the most rationalalternative,” the FNM wrote inits submission, recalling therecent liberalisation of theSlovak telecom market and thedecreasing market share of thecompany. “With regards to de-velopment on telecommunica-tions markets in general,growth in the value of the stakeheld by the FNM and the stateis improbable. A positive devel-opment in profitability and thusalso in expected dividends is notprobable. The FNM togetherwith the Economy Ministry donot have, as minority share-holders .. any real reach on theheading of the company.”

The ministry agrees withthe FNM’s arguments, pointingto the decreasing position of theone-time monopoly operator.

“In case of the sale of thewhole stake held by the Slovakshareholder, i.e. the stakes ofthe ministry and FNM, theMinistry of Economy proposesto sell a portion of it to a stra-tegic investor and a portion viathe capital market,” the min-istry writes, as quoted by TASR.

According to the SITAnewswire, Deutsche Telekomhas declined to comment onany privatisation plans for now.

Other stakes for sale

The FNM also proposes tosell its 100-percent stakes in

all six local heating plants (inTrnava, Žilina, Košice, Martin,Bratislava and Zvolen). Theiraggregate nominal value isaround €166.7 million. TheFNM argues that the heatingcompanies are not able to cov-er their operating costs des-pite the extensive sale of realestate and are forced to drawon outside sources to securetheir further existence. TheFNM also points to the in-vestments the companiesneed to remain competitiveand meet increasingly toughenvironmental requirements.The FNM proposes to sell theheating companies in the formof an international tender.Their sale was part of the pro-gramme of the 2002-2006Mikuláš Dzurinda government,but was not carried out due tothe early parliamentary elec-tion held in 2006.

The FNM also proposes tosell minority stakes in region-al bus companies. It holdsstakes of between 37.84 per-cent and 44.01 percent in 17 buscompanies, with an aggregatenominal value of around€72.13 million.

Among other companies inwhich the FNM has stakes itwants to sell is the BratislavaStock Exchange (BCPB), inwhich it holds 75.94 percent,the Kúpele Sliač spa (67 percent)and the Polyclinics Tehelná inBratislava (100 percent).

The FNM has not proposed,for now, the sale of stakes itholds in Letisko MR Štefánika –Airport Bratislava as well aswater utility companies.

Based on the applicable le-gislation, the FNM also leaves itto the Slovak cabinet to decideon the stakes it holds in com-panies which act as naturalmonopolies.

These companies includethree regional power distrib-utors in which the FNM holds51-percent stakes, gas utilitySPP, in which it holds 51 per-cent, and Slovak electricitygrid operator SlovenskáElektrizačná PrenosováSústava (SEPS), in which theFNM holds 100 percent.

ECON: Pushing the state deficit under 5 percent in 2011Continued from pg 1

“I consider the slowdown in the growth of the economy bysome tenths of a percent a smaller threat than the fact that thecountry would otherwise take the road of inappropriateindebtedness,” Sadovská said.

She expects prices to grow by 3.2 percent in 2011, while insome months food prices might jump by as much as 7 percent.Consolidation measures, such as higher VAT and excise taxes,will take less than 1 percent of the share of this development,Sadovská said. The higher taxes will not be fully reflected inprices since merchants will carry part of the burden in the formof lower margins, she explained, adding that this practice couldbe ascribed to the relatively high unemployment rate.

“Higher prices for commodities or oil on world markets willimpact more expensive food products” Sadovská said.“However, the comparison basis from last year will make a con-tribution, since prices in many cases over the past year fell orclimbed only very slowly.”

Sadovská considers the greatest challenge the governmentmight face in 2011 as being to keep to its plan of consolidationand to push the public finance deficit under 5 percent of GDP.

“There are certain risks, however,” she said, adding that

Slovakia is a small and export-oriented economy dependent onforeign partners. “As well as tax incomes, real savings via spend-ing or the drawing of EU funds might lag behind.”

Good ground for reforms?

Referring to economic theory, the Financial Policy Instituteat the Finance Ministry suggested that 2011 might serve as agood foundation for reforms, but said this would not depend onpolitical will alone. Higher public support as well as the effect ofthe economic and election cycles might have a positive contri-bution, the institute suggested, referring to a Eurobarometersurvey showing that more than 80 percent of respondents be-lieve reforms are necessary for Slovakia’s economy.

“In addition to that, the best time for reforming is two yearsafter a recession and in the first two years of the election cycle,”wrote the Financial Policy Institute. “On the other hand, the on-going healing of the public finances might to a certain degreehold back [the reforms].”

Vladimír Vaňo, chief analyst with Volksbank, suggested thatany structural economic reforms are initially followed by higherperceived costs, which in the early stages outweigh the immedi-ate perceived benefits.

“This so called ‘vale of tears’ can hardly be avoided, as onlylater do the ongoing and gradually increasing benefits of past de-cisions exceed the gradually receding perceived disadvantagesof such structural changes, i.e. reforms,” Vaňo told The SlovakSpectator. Vaňo noted that the drawbacks of reforms are viewedas less painful during a period of recovering economic growth.

“On the other hand, we should keep in mind that a peculiarfeature of this recovery is that the decline in unemployment can-not be expected to be as fast as it used to be in the past,” Vaňo said.

Since unemployment is the most important economic metricfor households, one should not overestimate taxpayers’ optimismwhen it comes to unpopular measures, according to the analyst.

“Hence, reforms should be done when necessary, not whenthey become palatable, since by definition the sweet fruit of re-forms always follows the bitter sweating at the beginning,shortly after they are implemented,” Vaňo said. “The theory ofpolitical economy argues that important reforms should bedone as soon after elections as possible so that the palatablefruits manage to ripen before the next elections.”

Already, negotiation over the 2011 budget and discussionabout fiscal consolidation has shown that the diverse composi-tion of the governing coalition can pose major challenges to ne-cessary but unpopular measures, Vaňo concluded.

The Košice heating plant is on the 'for sale' list. Photo: TASR

4 BUSINESSJanuary 10 – January 16, 2011

Opakovaný vtip

“A JOKE repeated, is not ajoke,” (opakovaný vtip nie jevtipom) says a Slovak pro-verb. Still, local police ended2010 in very much the samestyle as they started it – by al-lowing an unsuspecting ci-vilian to carry dangerouscargo around Europe.

In January it was theelectrician from Poprad whoflew to Dublin with hisbackpack containing test ex-plosives which had been lostby border police during adog-training exercise.

In December came thestory of the driver whosetruck was filled with a sub-stance used in the produc-tion of heroin.

Yes, there were differ-ences. The testing of explos-ives on travellers was clearlyillegal and brought the coun-try international ridicule,but on the other handpresented no actual threat,not counting the danger

posed by Irish airport secur-ity and law enforcement.

The recent “monitoredtransport” on the otherhand could be legally justi-fied, meant no Europe-wideembarrassment, but alsoput the Czech driver in realdanger. Not to mention thefact that he had to spendChristmas in a Turkishprison.

There are several lessonsboth cases hold:

1. Don’t trust the Slovakpolice with your luggage. Oryour vehicle.

2. Never expect local of-ficials to accept responsibil-ity for the mistakes of theirsubordinates. Former interi-or minister Robert Kaliňák atone point suggested thatperhaps it was the dog thatdidn’t do his job right. Andnow police chief JaroslavSpišiak explained that notonly did the police do noth-ing wrong, they “completedthe operation with bravura”.

3. Whatever goeswrong, foreigners are toblame. Kaliňák said that Ir-ish police overreacted bysealing off an entire streetwhen they went in to get theexplosive. Current ministerDaniel Lipšic says that thetruck affair “confirms thatTurkey is not ready for EUentry”.

Luckily, neither case hada tragic end. But let’s hopethere will be no more of themin 2011. This joke wasn’tfunny even the first timearound.

The dog does his duty– but to whom?

WHENEVER the public beginsto forget about Ján Slota, thechairman of Slovak NationalParty (SNS), he reaffirms hisdismal political presence bymaking one or two scandalousstatements which, apart fromappalling everyone with anysense of decency, tend to addfuel to nationalist fires.

This is how he has man-aged to linger so long onSlovakia’s political stage –though his party came tantal-isingly close at the last gener-al election to falling below the5-percent threshold needed towin seats in parliament.

Slota’s strategy demon-strates that crass statementsor clumsy political acts cantemporarily lend more polit-ical importance to failingpolitical figures than they ac-tually have or deserve, attract-ing the spotlight if only for aday or two.

More often than not,those on the road to beingforgotten by the public, butstill driven by a desire tomake it back into the game,barely consider the con-sequences of their actions.

The leader of the Hun-garian Coalition Party (SMK),József Berényi, attracted me-dia attention at the very be-ginning of the year by an-nouncing that as chairman ofthe only Hungarian party inSlovakia, it was his “dog’sduty” to apply for Hungariancitizenship, something madepossible by a piece of legisla-tion cooked up by HungarianPrime Minister Viktor Orbánand his government.

The law allows ethnicHungarians living in coun-tries bordering Hungary toacquire Hungarian citizen-ship, if they chose to, with re-lative ease.

Yet due to a counter-measure passed by the previ-ous Slovak government, led by

Robert Fico, anyone who de-liberately applies and therebyacquires the citizenship of an-other country can be stripped

of their Slovak passport. It ishard to say which of these twolaws was more poorly timedor did a greater disservice tothose it claimed to protect orrepresent.

The Slovak law is still val-id, which is bad enough in it-self.

One explanation Berényioffered for his action was tosuggest that the new gov-ernment should not have al-lowed 2011 to arrive withoutrepealing the Fico-drafted le-gislation.

But it is highly doubtfulthat his Hungarian citizen-ship application will increasein any way the likelihood ofthis happening.

All it does is give Slota andhis ilk oxygen for their soleagenda: nationalism. In earlyJanuary Berényi commentedthat unfortunately there are

still people in this countrywho look at the Hungarianminority as a threat to Slov-akia.

He has certainly not re-duced this number with hiscontribution to the discourse.

What Berényi seems toforget is that Hungarians inSlovakia rejected the radical-isation of the political scenewhen they turned away fromthe SMK at the last election,denying it any seats in par-liament.

In fact, even former primeminister and Smer leaderRobert Fico, who could hardlybe described as a minority-friendly politician and whosegovernment only fuelled ten-sions with Slovakia’s south-ern neighbour, suggested thatSlovak politicians haveslightly underestimated theloyalty of Slovak Hungariansto Slovakia.

Perhaps so did Berényiand his SMK.

Undoubtedly, Slota’spresence in the previous gov-ernment and the amendedState Language Act contrib-uted little to the comfort ofHungarians who live in Slov-akia – on the land where theirgrandparents lived, andwhere they hope their owngrandchildren will continueto understand and speakHungarian.

However, Berényi’s actopens up a more serious ques-tion than just the citizenshipof the SMK boss: it is the polit-ical representation of ethnicHungarians in Slovakia, andwhether politicians who cur-rently address their agendaare able to abandon their pettypolitical fights for the sake ofwhat they claim to represent:better conditions for the Hun-garians in Slovakia to nourishtheir mother tongue and cul-ture and use it without re-striction or fear of penalty.

5January 10 – January 16, 2011OPINION

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “In fact we saved him.”

Slovak police chief Jaroslav Spišiak explains away a truck driver’stemporary incarceration in Turkey following a botched police operation

SLOVAK WORDOF THE WEEK EDITORIAL

BY BEATA BALOGOVÁSpectator staff

BY LUKÁŠ FILASpecial to the Spectator

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EDITORIALBEATA BALOGOVÁ - Editor - In - Chief JAMES THOMSON - Assistant EditorDONALD SPATZ - Assistant EditorJANA LIPTÁKOVÁ - Staff Writer

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Television

The proportion of people who watch TV was 89 percentaccording to the results of the MML-TGI survey.

Most-watched TV channels1. Markíza (private, targeting a family audience); 56%2. JOJ (private, targeting a family audience); 37%3. Jednotka (the first channel of public-servicebroadcaster Slovenská Televízia, now RTVS (Radio andTelevision of Slovakia); 23%4. TA3 (private news channel); 6%5. RTL Klub (private), Dvojka (the second channel ofSlovak Television) and TV Doma (private); each 3%

Source: MML-TGI by Median SK agency

Compiled by Spectator staff

Radio

The proportion of respondents who listened to the radioon the day before the survey was 72 percent.

Most-listened-to radio stations1. Rádio Expres (private); 21%2. Rádio Slovensko (Slovakia’s public-servicebroadcaster SRo, now RTVS (Radio and Television ofSlovakia); 17%3. Fun Rádio (private); 13%

Print

According to the MML-TGI survey, 40 percent of theSlovak population had read one of the national dailynewspapers when asked about the most recent issue ofthe dailies. Nový Čas dominated the ranking with 23percent readership, far ahead of other daily papers. Thenext three papers, Plus Jeden Deň, Sme and Pravda eachhad 7 percent readership.

Most-read dailies1. Nový Čas (tabloid); number of readers: over 1 million;23% of the adult population2. Plus Jeden Deň (tabloid); 7%3. Sme (national daily); 7%4. Pravda (national daily); 7%5. Šport (sports-oriented daily); 4%6. Korzár (daily covering eastern Slovakia); 4%7. Hospodárske Noviny (financial daily); 3%8. Új Szó (Hungarian-language daily); 2%

Media in Slovakia

The Market & Media & Lifestyle – Target Group Index(MML-TGI) survey, conducted by the Median SK agencyin licensed cooperation with the British Kantar MediaGroup, was administered between March 29 andSeptember 12, 2010, among a sample of 4,137 respondentsaged 14 to 79. The survey results below are combinedfor the second and third quarters of 2010.

Institutions and organisations ofmedia, advertising and PR

Ministry of CultureMinister: Daniel Krajcerwww.culture.gov.sk

Slovak Syndicate of Journalists (SSJ)www.ssn.sk

Association of Internet Media (AIM)www.aimsr.sk

Association of Public Relations (APRSR)www.aprsr.sk

Club of Advertising Agencies of Slovakia (KRAS)www.kras.sk

The news from Facebook

BREAKING a story on a socialnetwork that allows one towrite only 140 characters perpost might have seemed like afoolish way to engage injournalism only a few yearsago. But at the beginning of2011 there is no question thatjournalistic work has changedtremendously and journalismis now peering through thelenses of Facebook and Twit-ter. Slovak journalists are notlagging behind and are in-creasingly using social net-works as both sources of newsand as publication vehicles.That offers many positives andways to improve the work ofjournalists but also poses somechallenges and questions yetto be answered.

“Some of the most difficultdiscussions over the past fiveyears were about journalismbecoming a conversationrather than one-way traffic,”said Matthew Eltringham, anassistant editor at the Inter-activity and Social Media De-velopment department at theBBC who leads a programmebringing social media skills toall journalists at the BBC, dur-ing a discussion on Social Me-dia and its Impact on Modern

Journalism organised by theOpen Society Foundation andFrontline on December 14,2010 in Bratislava. “And forjournalists who’ve been in thebusiness for 20 years, whowere used to standing uptelling everybody what thenews is, [it is a challenge] tounderstand that that one-waytraffic is on its way out andthat news and journalism isincreasingly a conversation.”

News reportingis not one-way

The conversation betweenjournalists and their audi-ences is taking place mainlyvia virtual encounters on so-cial networks, among the

largest being Twitter andFacebook, which are becominga valuable source of user-gen-erated content for journalists.

The idea that an audiencecan tell its own story withoutbig media organisations’ in-tervention has changed thegame for major news organ-isations.

“The idea that we controlthe flow of information haschanged and we are begin-ning to get used to it,” El-tringham said, adding thatthe audience, rather thanwaiting to be contacted by themedia organisations or wait-ing to hear from them whatthe story is, is trying to dir-ectly influence the storythrough social media.

According to Tomáš Bella,an expert on new media withNextBig consulting companyand the first editor-in-chief ofsme.sk, Slovakia’s biggestnews server, user-generatedcontent can become even moreimportant for the Slovak me-dia than it is for the British andAmerican media. The Slovakmedia’s production capacitiesare much smaller than those oflarge foreign outlets: the localprivate media, for instance, donot have permanent foreigncorrespondents. For that reas-on user-generated content canhelp Slovak media cover topicswhich large foreign media as-sign to their own reporters.

See MEDIA pg 8

BY MICHAELATERENZANISpectator staff

Journalists are using social media as a tool in their work. Photo: SITA

Internet advertising records uptickONLINE advertising is showing an up-ward trend after falling for more than ayear. Online advertising on the web pagesof members of the Association of InternetMedia (AIM) amounted to €5.41 millionfor the third quarter of 2010. Though thiswas a 7.1-percent drop compared with thesecond quarter of 2010 it represented anincrease of 6.6 percent compared with thethird quarter of 2009.

“After five quarters the volume of on-line advertising started to grow again,”Milan Csaplár, AIM executive board chiefwrote in a press release. “For the market itis a positive signal and I believe that thegrowth will continue also in the nextquarters.”

With regards to the types of onlineadvertising, banner advertising contin-ued to dominate. But for the first time thistype of advertising fell below its tradi-tional more-than-half share and stood at49.1 percent (€2.66 million) in the thirdquarter of 2010. Classifieds ads followedwith 22.3 percent (€1.2 million) andsearch ads were slightly less, with 17.8percent (€965,000).

Compared with the third quarter of2009, the biggest growth was registered in

the lead-generation segment, recording ajump of 652 percent.

In terms of the source of the advert-ising for banner ads and rich media, i.e. in-ternet advertising that contains anima-tion, audio, flashing colours, and other en-hancements, the telecommunications in-dustry accounted for 23.3 percent, followedby the automotive sector with 13.1 percent,and various other services with 11.3 per-cent. The latter included, for example,political advertising and advertising foreducation, according to AIM. The figurespresented were for media-net value advert-ised on the websites of AIM members,meaning that the values included commis-sions by advertising and media agencies.

Beginning in 2011 available data aboutonline advertising will be more extensiveas AIM will begin releasing quarterly dataon online advertising revenues of serversthat are not AIM members and foreignservers operating in Slovakia, for exampleGoogle and Facebook.

Overall ad decline in 2009

Online advertising on the websitesof AIM members amounted to €23.3

million in 2009, a drop of 5.4 percentcompared with 2008. This was the firstannual drop since 2004 when AIMbegan monitoring online advertisingrevenues.

The final quarter of 2009 was re-sponsible for much of the annual de-cline as online advertising decreased byas much as 20 percent in the October-December 2009 period compared withthe same months of 2008, AIM reported.

Advertising spending in all forms ofmedia shrank by as much as 35.3 percentover 2009, to €1.1 billion, according todata published in June 2010 by TNS SK, afirm active in market research.

Based on its analysis, revenue fromadvertising on television experienced asignificant decline after official rateswere decreased.

The drop in advertising spendingamong other media was not as steep.Print-based advertising decreased onlymoderately and outdoor advertising wasunchanged.

Advertising in cinemas and on radioincreased.

By Jana Liptáková

6 January 10 – January 16, 2011

Social media havechanged how

news is reported

BUSINESS FOCUS

SLOVAK BRAND NAMES IN THE WORLD

Next issue:MEDIA AND PRTV in Slovakia to go fullydigital by 2012

Slovakia gets its own editionof Forbes

Finnish publishing house sells titles

THE FINNISH publishinggroup Sanoma Magazines In-ternational sold its publish-ing business-to-businessactivities in Slovakia to theEcopress publishing house inmid 2010, the SITA newswirereported. No financial detailswere revealed. Ecopress pub-lishes, among others, theHospodárske Noviny finan-cial daily.

The divesture of SanomaMagazines Slovakia is an im-portant step for SanomaMagazines International inits strategy of focusing on

core products and core mar-kets, the company said.

In Slovakia, SanomaMagazines Slovakia’s portfo-lio was limited to magazines(Stratégie, Obchod, HorecaMagazine, Zdravotnícke Nov-iny, Sestra, Diabetik, RUNand others) and magazine ex-tensions (like conferences) inthe business-to-businessmarket.

Sanoma remains presentin Slovakia through its homedeco portal, Tvojdom.sk, anda building service website,eStranky.sk.

New owner for Pravda daily in 2010

ONE of the leading Slovakdailies, Pravda, changedhands last year. ThePravda.sk internet newsportal reported on March 23,2010, that Karol Biermannbecame the new owner of thePravda daily via the purchaseof the publishing houses Per-ex, which publishes the daily,and Avízo by Florena. Florenais owned by Biermann, theSITA newswire wrote.

Pravda.sk reported thatFlorena’s purchase of bothcompanies from the Brit-ish media group Daily Mail& General Trust, whichowns the Daily Mailnewspaper in Great Bri-tain, was mediated by theSlovak financial groupJ&T.

The former Britishowners had been publish-ing Pravda since mid-2006.

PR agencies compete for awards

SLOVAKIA’S Association ofPublic Relations (APRSR), incooperation with themonthly Stratégie, has an-nounced the second year ofthe Prokop PR projects com-petition, Stratégie wrote inits December issue. The mainaim of the contest is to ac-knowledge the best originalPR projects carried out inSlovakia in 2010. The criteriafor the contest are innova-tion, creativity and flexibil-ity of each PR project whendocumented results aretaken into account.

“The aim of the next yearof the Prokop competition isto link to the successful firstyear of this project and in-troduce the best communic-ations campaigns carried out

by Slovak agencies to the ex-pert as well as generalpublic,” said APRSR presid-ent Peter Fecko.

Agencies can submitprojects up to January 20 andawards will be handed out ata ceremony on February 10.

Last year, 10 agenciesentered 23 projects in thecompetition.

Seesame CommunicationExperts became the mostsuccessful agency when itwon two categories: Corpor-ate Communications, andCommunity Relations andInternal Communication.First place in the third maincategory, Business to Busi-ness PR and Business to Con-sumer PR, went to AMICommunications Slovakia.

TV in Slovakia to gofully digital by 2012

SLOVAKIA is switching fromanalogue broadcasting of TVsignals to digital. The processis expected to be completedover the course of 2011 withthe analogue format to be dis-continued completely by theend of 2012. Moving to the newtechnology brings better pic-ture and sound quality and italso offers multiple program-ming choices and interactivecapabilities.

“The process of the trans-ition to digital TV is followingthe plan and if no unpredict-able events occur we believethat we should complete thedefinitive transition from ana-logue to digital broadcasts inlate 2011,” said Ján Hudacký,the state secretary of the Min-istry of Transport, Construc-tion and Regional Develop-ment, on December 7, asquoted by the SITA newswire.In several areas of Slovakia di-gital television has alreadybeen launched along with re-striction of the analogue sig-nal. He added that a massswitch-off of the analoguetransmitters is expected dur-ing the first half of 2011.

The transition to DVB-T(Digital Video Broadcasting-Terrestrial), as the whole pro-cess is known in Slovakia, dir-ectly impacts those viewerswho receive their TV signal viaa classical TV antenna on ananalogue TV set. These view-ers will need to obtain a so-called set-top box, a digital-to-analogue converter, or pur-chase a new TV and redirecttheir antenna in order to re-ceive digital programming.The ministry estimates theproportion of such Slovakhouseholds at 50 percent, ac-cording to the websitewww.digimedia.sk, which isdevoted to the transition. Thechange will not affect thoseusing the services of cable op-erators or receiving their sig-nal from a satellite.

Filip Hanker, an expertand the editor-in-chief ofZive.sk and MobilMania.sk,sees the transition to the di-gital format as an opportunityto launch interactive services,even though at the currenttime there is no informationabout their actual launch.

Hanker perceives the maindisadvantage of the transitionis that people who still own ana-logue TV sets will need to buyeither a set-top box or a new TVand re-direct their antennas.

To support the‘digitalisation’ of Slovak soci-ety the government is pre-pared to help socially-weakgroups of citizens to purchaseset-top boxes with a one-offsubsidy of €20 per household.However, at the end of 2010parliament changed themethod for distribution of thefinancial assistance. Origin-ally, people with low incomes,pensioners and the disabledwere supposed to automatic-ally receive the €20 for pur-chase of the set-top box bypost. Now, they must apply toreceive the subsidy.

An important benefit ofthe switch to all-digital broad-casting is that it has freed upparts of the broadcast spec-trum. Hanker believes that theadditional bands can later beused for internet connectivity.

Under the new system andwithin the so-called multi-plex system, a group of TVchannels are mixed together(multiplexed) for broadcastover a digital TV channel andthen separated out (de-multi-plexed) by the receiver. Sinceone TV channel or frequencyenables the broadcast of onlyone analogue televisionchannel, the digital formatenables much more to bebroadcast, depending on thechosen MPEG standard (thegeneric coding of moving pic-tures and associated audio in-formation).

The current MPEG-2standard enables the broad-cast of four to five channels inone multiplex. The MPEG-4standard enables broadcastingmore than five channels.

Hanker believes that fromthe technological point ofview it would be better forSlovakia to choose the moremodern standard and he ex-pects in the future that thecountry will switch to MPEG-4. He discounts argumentsabout the large differencebetween the prices of deviceswith the older and newer cod-ing standards, saying thatthis is gradually disappear-ing. Currently the price dif-ferential is between €15 and€20, according to Hanker.

Slow, deliberate transition

Slovakia’s transition tothe digital format has beentaking place gradually since2007. The first step was tomake digital television avail-able at previously unusedbroadcast frequencies withinthe so-called transition mul-tiplex.

Towercom, whichprovides television broad-casting throughout Slovakia,launched the commercial op-eration of the first, transitionmultiplex on December 22,2009. Later, an additional twomultiplexes were launched.

“The first transition mul-tiplex is currently availableto 94 percent of Slovakia,”Michal Šuran, marketingmanager of Towercom, toldThe Slovak Spectator, refer-ring to the coverage inDecember 2010. “Thus, theoverwhelming majority ofviewers can use the digitalterrestrial broadcast with allits advantages… the coverageof the second, commercial

multiplex now achievesabout 8 percent and the cov-erage of the third, publicmultiplex about 17 percent.Further widening of the cov-erage of the DVB-T signal willbe possible only after freeingup frequencies when the ana-logue terrestrial broadcast isterminated.”

According to Šuran, theswitch-off of large analoguetransmitters, will free up fre-quencies for the extension ofDVB-T that is planned for thesecond quarter of 2011. So far,two small transmitters havebeen switched off and so farnine Slovak villages havesolely digital broadcastingand no analogue TV signal.

See OFF pg 8

BY JANA LIPTÁKOVÁSpectator staff

The highly visible Kamzík television transmitter above Bratislava. Photo: Jana Liptáková

7January 10 – January 16, 2011BUSINESS FOCUS

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FOCUS shorts

MEDIA: Using the audience as a sourceContinued from pg 6

On the other hand, Bella said, theBritish media can only dream about hav-ing several thousand online discussionentries under an article on their websitesas often happens on some Slovak andCzech news servers, such as sme.sk oridnes.cz, or about having hundreds oftheir own readers acting as bloggers.

“I believe that Slovak media are notlagging behind significantly,” Bella toldThe Slovak Spectator. “The differencesare rather caused by the diverse use oftechnologies – for instance Twitter is themain flash news source on the web in theAnglophone world while it is only rarelyused here and thus [Slovak] media don’tpay much attention to it and rather focuson Facebook.”

The audience as journalists?

The Slovak blogosphere has severaltimes proved to have a powerful voiceand an ability to report on important top-ics that journalists might have over-looked in their work.

Most recently, such an example cameto life on the pages of the Sme daily whenit ran a series of stories on the mistreat-ment of patients suffering from bedsoresin Slovak hospitals. The stories stirredconsiderable interest among the generalpublic, provoked some conflicts betweenthe daily’s journalists and hospital au-thorities, and in the end led to the HealthMinistry deciding to use the occurrenceand treatment of bedsores as an addition-al indicator of the quality of hospitals.

Sme admitted that its engagement inthe topic was inspired by one of the 17,000bloggers who operate within a blog re-gistered on the blog.sme.sk platform.

The user-generated content thatSlovak media are working with,however, is far from restricted to blogs.

According to Bella, there are mul-tiple examples of good practice in usingsocial media in journalism in Slovakia:there are many successful Facebookpages created by the Sme daily, and pub-lic-service radio’s Radio FM channel wasthe first to do first-class work on Twit-ter.

“Several editorials such as the NovýČas daily or Markíza TV with theirsomreporter.sk, a twin of CNN’s iReportproject, work systematically with user-generated content,” Bella said.

Mining social networks

Major media organisations such asthe BBC employ specialised teams withthe purpose of finding and managinguser-generated content.

Eltringham, who leads such a teamin the BBC, says that social newsgather-ing involves finding newsworthy storiesthat come directly to the media organ-isation or actively searching for suchstories across social media.

“In the event of a breaking story thefirst thing we would do is to ask our ownaudience if they had experience withthat particular event,” Eltringham ex-plained. “So on our own website wewould ask people what they know and tosend in videos or stills. And in the mean-time we would search all media plat-forms through core basic searches, look-ing for content on YouTube, Facebook,Twitter, across the spectrum.”

He added however that before pub-lishing content from users, the appro-priate BBC department runs a process ofauthentication and verification to estab-

lish whether the content is genuine –through basic journalistic methods.

“We would never publish or broad-cast any content unless we’ve firstspoken to the person who has sent it inor who took it or who owned that con-tent in order to establish that it wasgenuine,” Eltringham said.

In Slovak circumstances, it is un-imaginable for the local media to havewhole departments to work with user-generated content due to a lack of suffi-cient resources. On the other hand, Bellanoted that Slovak media have the ad-vantage of a relatively small audienceand for that reason the gap between me-dia professionals and their audience isnot that huge. Many Slovak media pro-fessionals have created big networks,sometimes amounting to thousands ofpeople on Facebook, and these networkshave become one of the most importantsources for information and story tips.

Experts also say that the global trendis making sure that all journalists havethe skills required to work with socialmedia rather than establishing special-ised departments.

“I think we are absolutely clear inour minds that everybody should be do-ing this, and the ability to work properlyon the social media is something thatevery single journalist should have,” El-tringham stated.

“Social media are just another in-formation source and the journalisticwork is about selecting the best of allsources – so those who have managedthe work with numerous sources beforecan get even better because they havebeen given a new valuable source,” Bellasaid. “But those who haven’t been man-aging well even before might obviouslyencounter even bigger problems.”

OFF: Information is 'weak and late'Continued from pg 7

The composition of TVchannels that will be availablevia individual multiplexes isnot final and is still undergo-ing change. Currently, thefirst multiplex contains thefirst and second channels ofthe public-service broadcaster(RTVS) along with private TVstations Markíza and JOJ. Thesecond multiplex offersMarkíza and its TV Domachannel as well as JOJ and itsJOJ Plus channel. The third,public multiplex offers allthree RTVS channels. Of all theSlovak TV stations with na-tionwide coverage only theTA3 news channel is missingfrom the three multiplexes.

“The composition of mul-tiplexes depends on an agree-ment with broadcasters,” saidŠuran. "The digital multi-plexes already contain TV sta-tions of almost all the nation-wide Slovak broadcasters. Ifanother broadcaster is inter-ested in broadcasting in a na-tionwide multiplex, we areready to offer it our services.”

Towercom expects anoth-er enrichment of digital ter-restrial broadcasts with thetransition of regional TV sta-tions to DVB-T, for which localdigital multiplexes are beingallocated. Radio stations mayalso be components of themultiplexes and it is expectedthat the public multiplex willoffer public-service radio in

addition to the TV channels.Towercom expects thatprivately-owned radio sta-tions will be interested in be-ing broadcast via the commer-cial multiplexes.

Towercom expects thatthe overall TV signal coveragewithin Slovakia will not actu-ally change and be at approx-imately the same level as be-fore the transition to the di-gital format.

Hanker said the change informat may bring a problem inareas in which their analoguebroadcast signal was weaker,with a lower quality picture,explaining that since digitaltelevision brings “either 100percent or nothing” this may

mean than in poor receptionareas digital broadcastingcould improve quality or res-ult in nothing at all beingavailable.

The information cam-paign about the switch-off ofanalogue television has so farnot been very intensive andsome affected villages havealready complained that theyreceived information too late.According to Zive.sk, Tower-com has chosen the process ofinforming affected com-munities and their citizensonly some days before switch-ing-off of analogue broadcasts.The website stated thatTowercom believes earlier in-formation would be no more

effective as people do not payattention to the impendingtransition until they are dir-ectly affected.

Together with the state,Towercom has prepared an in-formation campaign which,according to Zive.sk, includesthe visit of a minibus to af-fected villages. It provides de-tailed information and advisespeople on how to re-direct an-tennas as well as selling set-top boxes and new antennas.Mayors of municipalities alsoreceive information lettersand a package of posters fortheir communities.

Hanker regards the cam-paign to inform people aboutthe transition to digital tele-vision as being weak and late,saying this may lead to hastydecisions by people to buynew devices without properlythinking over what kind offunctions they want in theirnew TV sets. He added that anexpert is also sometimes re-quired for the proper settingof the antenna and that somecitizens may “swallow thebait” of companies offeringdifferent ways of receivingthe TV signal.

“Such a campaign shouldhave started in affected local-ities at least two monthsbefore,” Hanker told TheSlovak Spectator. “[In thatway] it might have pulsed,that is weakened two or threetimes and then strengthenedagain.”

8 January 10 – January 16, 2011 BUSINESS FOCUS

Gučík appointed new head of TA3

MICHAL Gučík replacedMatej Ribanský as directorgeneral of the TV news chan-nel TA3 as of January 1, theTASR newswire reported.

Pavel Komorník, the legalrepresentative of TA3, whichis part of Grafobal Group,presented the appointmentof Gučík as a major contribu-tion to the TV station, point-ing to his long-term opera-tional and media experience.Ribanský is heading to a newposition at private station TVMarkíza.

Gučík sees his appoint-ment as a challenge, and sayshe wants to keep news cover-age at its current high level.

“I plan to continue devel-oping new technologies, in-ternet, elevation of the qual-ity of broadcasting andstrengthening of the inter-

activity between TA3 andviewers,” said Gučík.

Gučík previously acted asthe creative director andowner of an advertisingagency, Roko, known forworking with VladimírMečiar’s Movement for aDemocratic Slovakia (HZDS).Before the 2010 general elec-tion Gučík was purportedlyinvolved in the election cam-paign of the Slovak NationalParty (SNS), Korzár, theKošice daily wrote. He was apopular actor before the fallof the communist regime.

Ribanský was appointedTA3 director in February2009. He will enter top man-agement of the CME TV sta-tion in Slovakia where hetakes over as director of thecentre for advertising, repla-cing Martin Hauptvogel.

Ringier Axel Springer buys Azet.sk

EUROPEAN media giant Ring-ier Axel Springer Media AG haspurchased a majority stake inthe most visited web portal inSlovakia, buying 70 percent ofAzet.sk via its Slovak publish-ing subsidiary in mid Decem-ber. The price of the transac-tion was not disclosed, theSITA newswire wrote.

The director of AxelSpringer Media AG, FlorianFels, wrote in a press releasethat this acquisition givesthe company a leading posi-tion in the Slovak onlinemarket, which is expected togrow by 25 percent in comingyears. The penetration ofAzet.sk is currently morethan 75 percent of the popu-lation, representing about 1.9million real users.

“The portal with a widecontent focus excellently fitswith our strong mediabrands and suitably expandsthe existing portfolio inSlovakia,” said Fels. He saidhe was glad that the man-agement team of Azet.skwould support Ringier AxelSpringer in central and east-ern Europe in innovationsand digitalisation.

The founder and directorof Azet.sk, Milan Dubec,said a common aim of bothpartners is to continue theexpansion of Azet.sk’s on-line business and buildmarket share.

Ringier Axel SpringerMedia AG was established in2010 by the merger of SwissRingier and German AxelSpringer. It publishes themost popular daily newspa-per in Slovakia, Nový Čas,the weekly Život, monthliesEva and Geo, and runs webportals Čas.sk, Lesk.sk andAdam.sk, among others.

Ringier Axel SpringerAG also acquired a share inCPress Media, with theZive.sk and Bazar.sk sites.

Azet.sk is a popular in-ternet portal in Slovakia,operating a kind of SlovakFacebook, Pokec.sk, and anews portal, Aktualne.sk. Itemploys about 160 people.

Azet.sk began lookingfor a new majority owner orinvestor in spring 2010,with one shareholder say-ing they would not like tosell for less than €30 mil-lion.

Slovakia gets its own Forbes edition

DURING 2010, the Slovakmedia market witnessed thearrival of a Slovak edition ofthe international businessmagazine Forbes, and thedeparture of the weeklymagazine Markíza.

Two issues of the SlovakForbes were published in2010 and the third issue wasscheduled for publication onJanuary 7, 2011.

At the same time theSlovak media market saw thedisappearance of Žurnál,whose last issue was pub-lished in December 2009, andMarkíza, in June 2010. Theirpublishers halted both

magazines due to insuffi-cient advertising income.

New magazines will con-tinue to arrive in 2011. Threenew magazines on cookingand gardening began public-ation in Slovakia as of Janu-ary 4, 2011. All three arealready well-established inthe Czech Republic, wherethey have been published forfive years, the TASR news-wire wrote.

Their publisher, GeniusPress, is crossing the bordersof the Czech Republic for thefirst time.

Compiled by Spectator staff

from press reports

Antennas will have to be re-directed. Photo: Sme

FOCUS shorts

AWRY: Slovak police under fire againafter botched sting operation

Continued from pg 2

Police criticised

The Slovak police havesince come in for strong cri-ticism in both Slovakia andthe Czech Republic. TheCzech media wrote that thetruck driver had fallen victimto a bungled police opera-tion, which they comparedto an incident in early 2010which resulted in explosivematerial being carried aboardan aeroplane from Poprad toIreland by an unwittingSlovak citizen.

Former interior ministerRobert Kaliňák (Smer) calledon the Interior Ministry andthe police to apologise fortheir conduct. He claimed theSlovak authorities had lostcontact with their Turkishcounterparts a day after thetruck left Dunajská Streda,and under such circum-stances were obliged to haltthe action, the TASR news-wire reported.

While the Czech policewere waiting for explana-tions from their Slovak coun-terparts, the Slovak InteriorMinistry announced that itwould demand an explana-tion from the Turks.

Slovaks blame Turks

Slovak Police Corps pres-ident Jaroslav Spišiak andInterior Minister DanielLipšic both blamed the Turk-ish side for the failure of theoperation. Slovakia is plan-ning to file an officialprotest, saying the Turkishpolice marred the operation,which had been intended tobust an international druggang. Instead, two peoplewere taken into custody inSlovakia, but the organisersin Turkey were not caught.

“We have revealed an im-portant group of drug produ-cers and we wanted to alsoreveal the higher layers, thebig fish,” Lipšic said, asquoted by the SITA newswire,adding that this case proves

that Turkey is not yet ready tojoin the EU.

Police president Spišiakstressed that the Slovak po-lice did not put the driver indanger, as they did notchoose the shipper. He saidthat if the police had not or-ganised the operation, thedriver could have been de-tained in Turkey and faced alife sentence.

“In fact we saved him,”Spišiak said.

According to Spišiak, theproblem arose when theshipment arrived at a cus-toms warehouse in Turkeyand the Turkish police “star-ted behaving strangely”. He

said they checked whetherthe Red Crescent NGO hadreally ordered the disinfect-ant that was declared in thecustoms declaration, eventhough “they must haveknown it was only a ficti-tious declaration”. Spišiakclaimed the Turkish policebreached the agreement ac-cording to which they weresupposed to let the driver un-load the cargo and return toSlovakia.

According to Spišiak, theoperation was agreed on byseven countries, and camewithin the remit of Eurojust,the EU umbrella group forfighting international crime.

It observed the UN Conven-tion Against Illicit Traffic inNarcotics, he added.

Consequences

The Office of the GeneralProsecutor confirmed to themedia that the operationwas supervised by a specialprosecutor and was fully inline with the law. The meth-od of controlled delivery wasused in order to enable thepolice to identify not onlythe persons who directlymanipulated the cargo butalso those who organisedand managed the deal.

According to police, acontrolled delivery has beenused at least five times in thelast four years, most recentlyin 2009, when the Czech Re-public asked Slovak police tomonitor a car which trans-ported heroin from Turkey tothe Czech Republic via Slov-akia.

While Turkey has still notprovided an official explana-tion of why their police de-tained the driver, Slovakia’srepresentative with Eurojust,Ladislav Hamran, confirmedto the Sme daily that he hadalready received “certainanswers” as to why the driverwas detained.

The case might result inSlovakia being obliged to paydamages to the driver andthe company that owns thetruck. The driver, althoughreleased from custody, wasexpelled by Turkey andbanned from re-entering thecountry for one year. Thatmeans he will lose his job, asthe company he works forspecialises only in transportto Turkey.

The company’s owner,Martin Pavlát, said the truckis still being held in Turkey.He said he has received nohelp from Slovakia, and com-plained about suggestive re-marks by Spišiak that hiscompany might be a part ofan organised crime group,the Hospodárske Novinydaily reported.

9January 10 – January 16, 2011NEWS

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Former interior minister Robert Kaliňák of Smer. Photo: SITA

Current Police Corps president Jaroslav Spišiak. Photo: TASR

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Pilgrimage to Rajecká Lesná

IN THE 17TH and 18th centur-ies religious pilgrimagesstarted to be organised onSlovak territorythanks to severalmonastic orders.The destinationsof these pilgrim-ages were placesassociated with legends ofappearing saints, of sick per-sons being miraculouslycured, or of curative watersrising out of the earth.Chapels and churches werebuilt to commemorate these

sites and each year pilgrimsfrom a wide region headed tothe sites. These entourages

were colourful and very var-ied; festively dressed pil-grims sang songs typical fortheir specific region.

Most of the participantsin these pilgrimages simplywalked, sometimes as far as

several dozen kilometres,with only the ill and the eld-erly having some means of

transport.This postcard from

the 1920s was made byfamous photographerKarol Plicka. It showsa pilgrimage to

Rajecká Lesná, the formerFrivald. Boys in traditionalfolk costumes are walking –barefoot – from the village ofFačkov, several kilometresaway.

By Branislav Chovan

HISTORY TALKS

Western SLOVAKIA

Bratislaval CLASSICAL MUSIC: PoctaLisztovi / Tribute to Liszt – Thisconcert by pianist LászlóBorbély brings works by FranzLiszt including Aux Cypres dela Villa d’Este II: Thrénodie;Bagatelle sans Tonalité (TheFourth Mephistopheles-Waltz); Präludium und Fugeüber das Thema B-A-C-H /Fantasy and Fugue on theTheme B-A-C-H; as well asworks by György Ligeti andOlivier Messiaen.

Starts: January 11, 19:00;Slovak Radio Concert HallDvorana, Zochova 1. Admis-sion: €3-€5. Tel: 02/2047-5233;www.filharm.sk, www.even-tim.sk.

Bratislaval FILM FESTIVAL: Japonskýfilmový festival 2011 / Japan-ese Film Festival 2011 – Thismovie festival presents fiveJapanese contemporary films,dating from 1987 to 2008 andranging from poetic romanceto epic heroic saga: SeasideScenes; Divine Sword; ScarredAngels; The Youth of Miss Et-suko Kamiya; and WithoutScruples. Films are in Japanesewith English subtitles.

Starts: January 12-14;Mladosť cinema, Hviezdosla-vovo Square 14. Admission:free. Tel: 02/5980-0100; www.sk.emb-japan.go.jp/event_jff2011.html.

Bratislaval CLASSICAL MUSIC: Voci daCamera – The artists from theOpera of the Slovak NationalTheatre (SND) have arranged achamber matinée concert con-sisting of songs by GustavMahler, Johannes Brahms andM. P. Mussorgsky. J. Benci, J.Ďurčo, and D. Hamarová willbe accompanied on piano by R.Pechanec and J. Nagy Juhász.

Starts: January 16, 10:30;SND historical building, Hvie-zdoslavovo Square. Admis-sion: €15. Tel: 02/2047-2272,02/2047-2299;www.snd. sk.

Bratislaval EXHIBITION: Palo Macho -Nové v Nove / The New in Nova– Palo Macho works with sheetglass and creates double-sidedpaintings which become re-liefs. This exhibition repres-ents his most recent works.

Open: Tue-Sun 13:00-18:00

until January 23; GalériaNOVA, Baštová 2. Admission:free. Tel: 02/5443-3039; www.galeria-nova.sk.

Bratislaval EXHIBITION: Autoportréty /Self-Portraits – This collectionis a selection of self-portraitsby Slovak and foreign artists ofthe younger generation (LuciaDovičáková, JarmilaDžuppová, Martin Me-licherčík, Alex Mirutziu fromRomania, and Erik Šille andMarianne Vlaschits from Aus-tria), showing the issue ofidentity, public and intimate,in all its aspects.

Open: Monday-Friday15:00-19:00 from January 10-21; KROKUS gallery, 1st MaySquare 3. Admission: free. Tel:02/2072-8131; www.krokus-galeria.sk.

CentralSLOVAKIA

ŽilinaICE-HOCKEY LEAGUE: MsHkDOXXbet Žilina vs MHCMountfield Martin – These twotraditional local rivals meet inthe 52nd round of the SLOVN-AFT ice hockey Extra League.

Starts: January 14, 17:00;Vojtech Závodský ice hockeystadium, Športová 5. Admis-sion: €2-€3. Tel: 041/5621-676;www.mshkzilina.sk.

Banská Bystrical BENEFIT BALL: Sen afantázia secesie / Dream andFantasy of Art Nouveau - The2nd benefit city ball offersswing, folklore, modern danceand music, and much more.

Starts: January 14, 20:00;ECC, nám. Slobody 3. Admis-sion: €40. Tel: 048/4155-085;www.pkobb.sk

EasternSLOVAKIA

Košicel FASHION: Art in the Fash-ion – In cooperation with theInfiniti media agency and hos-ted by Jan Kaňourek fromPrague, designers LouisaDvorak (US), Lýdia Kavková(Košice), Baldinini (Italy),Matěj Ruppert and TerezaČernochová (Prague) showaudiences their designs.

Starts: January 14, 20:00;Spoločenský pavilón, TriedaSNP 61. Admission: €20. Tel: 02/5293-3321; www.ticketportal.sk.

Košicel EXHIBITION: Kassapoint –This exhibition, a reaction torecent developments in Slov-ak-Hungarian relations, fo-cuses on national identity andon the historical and ethnicspecifics of Košice. Exhibitingartists are of - at least partial -Hungarian origin.

Open: Tue-Sun 16:00-20:00until January 23; Make Up Gal-lery, Kasárne Kulturpark, Ku-kučínova 2. Admission: free.More info: www.makeupcol-lective.org.

Prešovl EXHIBITION: sejfBOOK – Acollection of works by youngartists from eastern Slovakiathat shows recent trends andunconventional works of art,according to the curatorMagdaléna Bačová. Theproject includes 17 authorsfrom the surrounding regions.

Open: Tue, Wed, Fri9:00-17:00, Thu 9:00-18:00, Sun14:30-18:30 until January 16;Šariš Gallery, Hlavná 51. Ad-mission: €1. Tel: 051/7725- 423;www.sgpresov.sk.

By Zuzana Vilikovská

EVENTS COUNTRYWIDE

THE LEGENDARY Slovak rock/jazz band Collegium Musicum,which plays a fusion of these genres with unbelievable ease andmastery, gives its Novoročný koncert / New Year’s Concert onJanuary 11 in the Big Concert Hall at Slovak Radio, Mýtna 1, Brat-islava; tickets cost €15 and are available through Ticketportal.For more information, please visit www.ticketportal.sk orwww.collegiummusicum.sk. Photo: ČTK

THE KOPPLOVA vila venue of Trnava’s Ján Koniarek Gallery, atZelený kríček 3, hosts an exhibition of Miloš Balgavý’s ceramicand pottery works until January 30. His exhibition is namedVoľná tvorba & dizajn / Free Creation & Design and the curator isDana Janáčková. For more information, please visit www.gjk.skor call 033/ 511-659. Photo: Courtesy of J. Koniarek Gallery

10 January 10 – January 16, 2011 CULTURE

TUE 11.1.

P. Hammel, M. Radačovský, P. Lančarič: 19:00Everest B

FRI 14.1.

G. Puccini: 19:00Tosca O

SUN 16.1.

Gala evening: 20:00Crystal Wings

10:30Voci da Camera O

MON 17.1.

Giuseppe Verdi: 19:00Nabucco O

TUE 18.1.

Giuseppe Verdi: 19:00I Due Foscari O

WED 19.1.

W. A. Mozart: 19:00The Magic Flute O

THU20.1.

G. Puccini: 19:00Turandot O

FRI 21.1.

P. I. Tchaikovsky, M. Petipa, L.I. Ivanov: 19:00Swan Lake B

SAT 22.1.

19:00Carmen B

Vincenzo Bellini: 19:00I puritani O

SUN 23.1. MON 24.1.

Georges Bizet: 19:00Carmen O

TUE 25.1.

Giuseppe Verdi: 19:00La Traviata O

WED 26.1.

G. Puccini: 19:00La Bohéme O

THU 27.1.

P. I. Tchaikovsky, M. Petipa, L.I. Ivanov: 19:00Swan Lake B

FRI 28.1.

Ch. Guonod: 19:00Faust O

SAT 29.1.

Giuseppe Verdi: 19:00I Due Foscari O

SUN 30.1.

V. Patejdl, L. Vaculík: 11:00, 17:00Snow White and the Seven Racers B

PROGRAM Slovak National Th eatreOPERA and BALLET

JANUARY 11 – JANUARY 30 SND New Building SND Historic Building Opera and Ballet Hall

20% Discount Voucherfor the Readers

of Slovak Spectator

SP 90250/6

ADVERTISEMENT

Tickets available at: SND Box offices: Historic Building, Hviezdoslavovo Square, Bratislava, 00421 2 204 94 290 www.ticketportal.sk New Building, Pribinova 17, Bratislava, 00421 2 204 72 298, 204 72 299, e-mail: rezervacie@snd.sk www.snd.sk HOT LINE: +421 2 204 72 297, information and offer for tickets MON - FRI 9:30 - 17:30

O opera, B ballet

Guest performance

V. Bellini: I puritani

Photo: C. Bachratý

Georges Bizet Carmen

Guest performance Győri Balett on January 22, 2011, at 19:00

New BuildingCarmen, a French opéra comique by George Bizet has been

also a strong isnpiration for a diff erent medium – dance. Passionate Carmen performed by Hungarian Győri Balett

company founded in 1979 is considered to be the most groundbreaking and exceptional perfmormance. Enjoy it in Bratislava´s Slovak National Th eatre.

Photo: Győri Balett

Photo: C. Bachratý

Tchikovsky, Petipa, Ivanov: Swan Lake

Take the advantage of this special promotion and enjoy the winter evenings at one of our ballet and opera performances!

Everest: January 11th, 2011 B Tosca: January 14th, 2011 O I due Foscari : January 18th, 2011 O The Magic Flute : January 19th, 2011 O Turandot : January 20th, 2011 O

Present this coupon at the box offi ce to get a 20% discount on the purchase of two tickets for performances mentioned above. The discount is not applicable with any other promotions and discount offers. We look forward to seeing you!

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 J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 1

Monday

Dá‰a

January 10

Tuesday

Malvína

January 11

Wednesday

Ernest

January 12

Thursday

Rastislav

Januaury 13

Friday

Radovan

January 14

Saturday

Dobroslav

January 15

Sunday

Kristína

January 16

Learning languagesmakes us global citizens

THE CHOCOLATE bar, theelectron microscope, the lightbulb, insulin and the Javaprogramming language aswell as the zipper, the baseballand the kayak were all inven-ted by Canadians. And theplentiful list of well-knowncontemporary Canadian per-sonalities includes, amongothers, poet and singer Le-onard Cohen, jazz pianist Di-ana Krall (of Slovak ancestry)and movie director JamesCameron. But these facts werenot the most important mes-sage that students of theĽudovít Štúr secondary schoolin Zvolen absorbed duringtheir discussion with GeorgesLemieux, chargé d’affaires ofthe Canadian Embassy.

“When we know many for-eign languages we become cit-izens of the world; we becomeintegrated and more involvedin the affairs of the world,”Lemieux said as he told thestudents about the importanceof learning other languages.

Lemieux met the Zvolenstudents as part of the Bring-ing the World to the Classroomproject developed by The Slov-ak Spectator, several foreignembassies in Slovakia andSugarbooks, a distributor oftextbooks. He emphasisedthat the process of studying aforeign language is just as im-portant as the ultimate goal.

“The way we learn a newlanguage potentially changesthe way we think and the waywe look at our lives,” saidLemieux, noting that some ofthese thoughts had also reson-ated in the essays that the stu-dents wrote that responded tothe provocative question: isknowing a foreign language arequirement only for the elite?

In the process of studyinganother language one cannothelp but also learnsomething about the cultureand traditions of the peoplewho use that language,Lemieux stated, adding thatit is an advantage whensomeone is exposed to thosewho speak a different lan-guage at an early age.

“In my case, I did notreally meet anyone who wasnot French Canadian, whiteand Catholic until I was nearly16 years old,” said Lemieux,who today speaks French, hismother tongue, as well as Eng-lish, German, Spanish andsome Czech.

In their essays some ofthe students discussedwhether money, time andthe ability to travel are pre-conditions for learning for-eign languages. The responsethat Lemieux offered to thestudents was that “at the endof the day if there is a will,there is a way” while em-phasising that lack of moneyis not an obstacle to learning

foreign languages. He addedthat young people’s exposureto English today is muchbroader because of the inter-net and better communica-tions.

When encouraging thelearning of foreign languages,

Lemieux listed several im-portant factors for the stu-dents to consider, including arecent survey which foundthat about 65 percent of com-panies in Slovakia had a for-eign language requirement foremployees.

“The internet is so power-ful and yet to benefit from itcompletely English has be-come a key issue,” Lemieux

said while referring to anotherfamous Canadian, futuristMarshal McLuhan, who sug-gested in his 1989 book that aglobal village would bring usall together but to do so wemust speak a common lan-guage.

Students note theimportance of English

Student Jakub Dychawrote in his essay that howpeople thought about for-eign languages “has alwaysbeen strongly influenced bythe era in which they lived”suggesting that in the past itwas not necessary or wassimply impossible to learnmore than one’s mothertongue. But Dycha wrotethat now “development andprogress of technology hasliterally forced people tolearn international lan-guages, directly orindirectly” adding that evenoperating common thingssuch as computers and nu-merous home applianceswould be nearly impossiblewithout a basic knowledgeof English.

According to anotherstudent, Pavol Krajči, elit-ism has disappeared fromstudying languages and ithas become accessible forordinary people. AlexandraMojžišová wrote thatwithout knowledge of for-eign languages youngpeople would hardly be ableto use the study and educa-tion opportunities offered bysome European Union pro-grammes.

The Bringing the Worldto the Classroom project hasthe goal of promoting great-er openness to different cul-tures while motivating stu-dents to pursue further edu-cation. The project sponsorsbelieve that discussions inthe English language atSlovak secondary schoolswith personalities from theinternational communitycan inspire young people’sunderstanding of issues thatare crucial for a tolerant so-ciety, one that welcomes di-verse cultures and is capableof participating in interna-tional discourse.

BY BEATA BALOGOVÁSpectator staff

Zvolen students discuss learning languages with Georges Lemieux. Photo: Ján Šugár

RCh: Decisivesteps needed

Continued from pg 3

Obviously, for some ofmy colleagues this soundedlike an offence against theSlovak majority, that Slovakinstitutions could be sanc-tioned if a Hungarian, aRuthenian, a Ukrainian or aRoma cannot get informa-tion in their respective lan-guages. The Slovak mental-ity doesn’t mind it happen-ing vice-versa, but when it isthe majority that is to bepunished, all of a sudden wedon’t like it.

TSS: One of the mainchanges you are introdu-cing in the draft amend-ment of the law on minor-ity languages is loweringthe quorum for speaking aminority language fromthe current 20 percent to10 percent. Why is thischange necessary and howwill it influence the life ofminorities in a practicalway?

RCh: All internationalrecommendations say thequorum should be lowered.Even in 1999 when the lawwas first drafted 20 percentlooked too high. But experi-ence has shown that it’s nota good quorum, as it still al-lows minorities to assimil-ate. International recom-mendations that we have re-ceived talk about 10 percent,arguing that minority lan-guages require increasedprotection since their posi-tion in the state is not equalto that of the state language.

I suspected that itwouldn’t be easily acceptedby many citizens and politi-cians but the proposed quor-um is not that low. Notabene, it doesn’t concern theHungarian minority as muchas it concerns the others.Currently, under the 20-per-cent quorum, it’s about 520municipalities with Hun-garian language and with thequorum lowered to 10 per-cent it would be another 30,less than a percent more. Butit gets interesting consider-ing the German minority,which is much smaller. Cur-rently, there is only oneGerman-speaking municip-ality, Krahule in centralSlovakia, but with the10-percent quorum it wouldgo up to 10 or 11 municipalit-ies. With the Croatianminority, it could affect twoof Bratislava’s municipalparts, Jarovce and Čunovo.Considering the Ruthenianminority, we propose count-ing them together with theUkrainians for the purposesof minority language usage,which would mean that eventhe town of Humenné wouldbecome officially bilingual.

The problem with theRoma minority in this re-spect is that a whole newinfrastructure for their lan-guage would need to be es-tablished. In that case we

would consider some wayto postpone the practicalimplication of the law, tocreate space for the educa-tion of Roma intelligencethat would be able to satur-ate this infrastructure. It’snot an easy package, whichalso requires higherbudgets for the municipal-ities in question.

TSS: Your office also dealswith some problems linkedto the Roma minority.Which of them do you con-sider the most serious?

RCh: The Roma agenda ispresently distributed amongseveral offices and I thinkthat it requires a more com-prehensive approach. In thepast 21 years the state hasfailed in social policy. Thereis some kind of economicegoism among the non-Roma and the problems ofRoma shrink to the problemof poverty. And since wecover up the economic diffi-culties and failures of thestate, the solutions that areproposed are often racist,ideological, and directedagainst the poorest citizensof this country.

‘Socially-excluded com-munities’ is only a nice namefor shantytowns, wherepeople who have no possibil-ity to make their way out ofthe vicious circle live. Andsince there is no compre-hensive approach to solvingtheir problems but each of-fice is solving it in its narrowdepartment – in healthcare,in schooling, in social affairs,in justice – the solutions arealways just partial. In myopinion we not only did notmove the problem of real so-cialisation of Roma com-munities forward in the past20 years, but it even reached‘red numbers’.

For the moment it’smainly civic associations thattake an interest in these is-sues, based on the willing-ness of some enthusiasts whowork within the Roma com-munities, but there is no sys-temic state approach. Theproblem of the Roma minor-ity cannot be solved by themarket, which some believeis able to solve everything.

Apart from that, all theprogrammes for Roma whichhave been run until now wereabout short-term solutions.And this problem needs to besolved in the long-run, andcomprehensively.

On the other hand, theextreme poverty which weare trying not to see in thisenvironment will continuegenerating ever higher costs.But money is not the biggestproblem. The problem is thatthere is a lack of a long-termconcept and there is a lack ofpolicy experts who wouldpropose solutions.

To read the full interview withRudolf Chmel go towww.spectator.sk.

11January 10 – January 16, 2011CULTURE / NEWS

“The way we learn a new language

potentially changes the way we think”

Georges Lemieux accepts a film award on behalf of actor RobertNaylor at the Bratislava Film Festival. Photo: SITA

Georges Lemieux,charge d'affaires of

the CanadianEmbassy, discussesthe importance of

learning languageswith Zvolen students

A muted New Yearin some cities

THE TRADITION of celebrat-ing the end of one year andthe beginning of the next inthe company of crowds in thestreet has become more pop-ular in Slovakia over recentyears and continued in 2010too. In the capital, Bratislava,Mayor Milan Ftáčnik praisedthe fireworks but expressedregret at the poor visibilitycaused by heavy fog. Thehead of communications forthe city council, Milan Vajda,explained to the SITA news-wire that this was caused bysignificant humidity. Thenumbers celebrating in thestreets were similar to previ-ous years, with several thou-sands attending, includingforeign visitors.

The evening show wasalso comparable with recentyears. The main stage was inMain Square, while Hviez-doslavovo Square hosted asimultaneous programme forrevellers. The main noveltyin Bratislava was the masslaunch of Chinese, or Kong-ming, lanterns. The civic as-sociation Želaj si (Make aWish) came up with the idea,which found a ready re-sponse among Bratislava in-habitants as well as visitors.Several hundred sky lan-terns, which allow people tomake a wish and as they letthe lantern fly high into thesky, floated off into the fogfrom 23:00.

In Košice, several thou-sand people gathered aroundthe Immaculata sculpturalgroup in the Main Street totake part in a party hosted byRichard Hergott. As in Bratis-lava, a new mayor, Košice’sRichard Raši, personally tookpart in the celebrations.

In Prešov, local bands en-tertained people; and aftermidnight a disco continuedwell into the small hours.Banská Bystrica welcomed inthe New Year with a pro-gramme full of music hostedby Ján Snopko in SNP Square.Originally, there should havebeen no fireworks due to mu-nicipal austerity measures,but a local businessman andcouncillor sponsored them atthe last moment.

In Trojičné (Trinity)Square in Trnava, around 200people celebrated the NewYear with a firework display,only to leave soon after-wards. The city council de-cided not to offer any furtherprogramme, SITA wrote. Foryears, Trnava has been theonly regional centre with noSilvester (New Year’s Eve)celebrations other than fire-works. However, this yearŽilina too, after two years ofhosting a wider range ofevents, had only fireworks.Incoming Mayor Igor Chomadecided to cancel the celebra-tions due to the city’s poorfinancial situation.

Lanterns with wishes: New Year in Bratislava. Photo: TASR

A traditional holiday season spread from Strečno in central Slovakia. Photo: TASR

Hidden cakes and stolenviolins: New Year in Zemplín

THE FIRST dayof the New Yearin the Zemplínregion in theeasternmostpart of Slovakia

had many folklore traditions.People, of course, wished eachother everything good in thecoming year, but they also ob-served many customs whichthey believed would bring aprosperous farm as well asfamily health and cohesion.

“The first day of the NewYear had a special power, vari-ous bans on specific activitieswere connected with it, oth-erwise the household or thefarm would not fare well,”Štefan Kocák of theHornozemplínske osvetovéstredisko (Upper ZemplínEducation Centre) in Vranovnad Topľou told the TASRnewswire.

He said one tradition wasnot to borrow anything on thefirst day of the year so that thefarm would be held together inthe coming year and nothingwould go amiss. He added thatit also had to be a man to first

enter the house on the firstday of the year and the homehad to be tidied up and clean.

“On this day, too, like dur-ing Christmas, carol singers,or well-wishers, went roundthe houses in the village. Theirwishes were mostly orientedtowards the farm’s prosperitybut they also included wishesof good luck, good health, andpeace and love in the family,”Kocák explained.

He added that on NewYear’s Day, villagers ate pork,symbolising wealth andprosperity. Part of the menuwas also a cake called“kračun”. Members of thehousehold ate some of the cakealready on Christmas Day butthat evening the head of thehouse was supposed to put iton the house-supporting tim-ber – called the mešternáhreda – and it was to be takendown only on New Year’s Day.

Kocák explained thatZemplín residents alsoavoided eating poultry or fishat the beginning of the year,fearing that their luck would“fly away or flow away” and

that the man of the householdwas supposed to get up firstand bring fresh water from thestream for the whole family towash themselves before put-ting on clean clothes and leav-ing for the New Year’s mass atthe village church.

According to Kocák, mu-nicipal representatives wereusually elected in the firstdays of the year. “The muni-cipal council used to hire andchoose the communal at-tendant; administrativecompanies elected the bell-founder, sacristan andgravedigger,” he said.

Kocák described anothercurious local tradition fromwhen young men started or-ganising balls at the start ofthe 20th century, first onJanuary 6, the Epiphany, andlater on New Year’s Day. Tomake sure they would havemusicians for their dance, theyoung men took the violinfrom the first violinist in thelocal folk band to make surethat the musicians wouldreally keep their promise andplay at the ball.

Calendar note: next total solar eclipsedue in Bratislava on May 16... 2227

DOZENS of Bratislavansarrived at the Danubeembankment on January4 to watch the partial ec-lipse of the sun in a pro-gramme organised by the

Slovak National Museum (SNM). “In themorning the weather looked ideal; thesky was clear and Venus was shining veryclearly in it. But later when the sun star-ted to rise, the air became warmer and fogstarted to form,” Katarína Maštenová ofthe Natural History Museum of the SNMtold the TASR newswire.

Because it was then not possible tosee the solar eclipse from the banks of the

Danube, a group of enthusiasts drove toKoliba, the highest peak in Bratislava. “It

was an interesting observation; we didnot even have to use filters as the fog cre-ated natural protection,” Maštenovásaid. The partial solar eclipse was visiblefrom about 8:00 to 11:00.

The next partial solar eclipse in Slov-akia will be around noon on March 20,2015. The next total solar eclipse will beon November 13 and 14, 2012 but it will bevisible only from northern Australia andmostly uninhabited regions in thesouthern Pacific. The next total solar ec-lipse in Slovakia will come on October 7,2135 but it will be visible only in northernparts of Slovakia. The next total solar ec-lipse in Bratislava will be on May 16, 2227.

Benefit forprisoners

THE OLDSchoolBrothersdance groupheld a char-ity perform-

ance on January 6 in thetown of Námestovo to sup-port the work of the OravaYouth Centre (Oravskécentrum mládeže) in help-ing youths with drug prob-lems, homeless people, aswell as those in prison. Thefundraising programme istraditionally organised forJanuary 6 as Epiphany, aSlovak national holiday,means for most people adefinite end of the holidayseason and a large-scale re-turn of employees to workand students back to schooland the replacement of thefestive atmosphere of pre-vious weeks by everydaynormality. But the organ-isers of the traditionalOrava event see things alittle bit differently.

“We have been organ-ising the benefit pro-gramme for this very day sothat we give the message topeople that this is not true,that the Christmas seasondid not end but rather con-tinues. Although the decor-ations at homes and instreets disappear, the goodand the love in our heartsthat is shown by giving tothose in need cannotdisappear,” BranislavKožuch, the head of theOrava Youth Centre told theSITA newswire.

The dancers from theOld School Brothers presen-ted their show Z ulice hore(Up from the Street) to thosewho paid an admission feeof €7 that will boost theactivities and work of theyouth centre. “There wasmore than an hour of danceand music where different“street-dance styles” wereintermixed,” Kožuch said.

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AROUND SLOVAKIAcompiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports

12 FEATUREJanuary 10 – January 16, 2011

The solar eclipse in Stará Lesná. Photo: TASR