GEOCITIZEN'S UNOFFICIAL GUIDE TO SLOVAK POLITICS / by Miro Sedivy

GUGSP
© 1997, 98
Miro Sedivy
GUGSP News:
WEDNESDAY 29 April 1998


  • The General Assembly of the Investment and Development Bank (IRB) decided to increase the property of IRB by 2 billion SKK (~57 million USD). The bank is owned by the National Property Fund (FNM) and the East-Slovakia Ironworks (VSZ), and due to incorrect management, the bank had to get under the obligated control by the National Bank of Slovakia (NBS) last year. NBS already provided IRB with over 11 billion SKK (~300 million USD),
    According to the former (1991-92) Minister of Privatization and the economic expert of the Slovak Democratic Coalition Ivan Miklos, the additional funding won't solve the current problems, and only the citizens will pay it from their money.

  • Two years ago, in April 1996, a car exploded in Bratislava with a young policeman Robert Remias, who was connected to the affair of kidnapping the ex-President's son Michal Kovac Jr. The inquest led to the state structures, mainly the Slovak Intelligence Service, and was supposed a political murder. Today, two years after Remias's death, the Slovak Democratic Coalition challenges the government to find the murderers and punish them correctly.

  • The Parliament discussed about the new electoral law in the specialized committees. Some of them already accepted the law without any important changes. The Constitutional-Law Committee member, Igor Hrusovsky (Christian Democratic Movement) proposed in the committee, that the law should be limited only to the modification of the regional administrative of Slovakia, so to the eight new regions, instead of four. Milan Secansky (HZDS) replied, that the law would be then limited "only to its envelope".
    Jan Cuper (HZDS) refused the opposition arguments, that the law shouldn't be modified so shortly before the elections, because "although it's still not valid, it's well known since over two months." According to Cuper, this law is the reaction to the opposition steps, who "misused" the old law in the previous elections and referendum. Jan Cuper also accused the Constitutional Court of "being politized too much", and also accused the private media of their financial interest in propagating the political parties in the electoral campaign.

  • The national air-transporter Slovenske Aerolinie (Slovak Airlines) got its very first aircraft, the Russian TU-154. The Prime Minister Vladimir Meciar, together with his Minister of Communications Jan Jasovsky officially baptized this plane of an old branch, which is even not used by the Russian airlines, by the name "Puchov", after a Slovak town near Zilina. This TU-154 has been purchased from the Russian debt and will begin its regular flights on May 1st, on the line Bratislava - Moscow.
    According to the information of TV Markiza, there was another young woman with the Prime Minister on the airport, which is supposed to be his new employee...

  • The Union of Tradesmen (KOZ) will organize a protest meeting in Bratislava on Friday. The tradesmen will request the government to present the real results of the privatization.

  • The Prime Minister Vladimir Meciar allowed the foreign environmental experts to unlimited checks of the nuclear power plant in Mochovce.