Interior Minister Robert Kaliňák has had a rocky start to 2010, with embarrassment over a botched airport security operationand news of a suspect escaping from police custody. He now faces a no-confidence motion in the coming days. Photo: TASR

Kaliňák facesno-confidence

motion

THE INTERNATIONAL scandal over explosivematerial unwittingly carried from the Popradairport to Dublin by a Slovak citizen after amismanaged police security training exercisecontinues to shake the political scene and willmost likely end in a no-confidence motionagainst Slovakia’s Interior Minister.

A transcript, published by the Sme daily onJanuary 11, of a recorded communicationbetween the policeman who had attached theexplosive sample to the luggage of a passengeronboard a Danube Wings flight from Poprad toDublin and the airport control tower as well asthe plane’s pilot as he readied for take-off onJanuary 2 has cast more light on the bafflingstory. It is clear from the transcript that thepoliceman told the airport control tower thatthe material was a real explosive, not a mock-up, but assured them that it could not explodewithout additional components required tomake it a functional bomb.

The control tower then passed the inform-ation on to the pilot of Danube Wings, sayingthat “the policeman forgot a mock-up of anexplosive” attached to a passenger’s luggage.Based on this statement the pilot decided that“we’ll fly with the mock-up and then try to ex-plain it somehow there in Dublin”.

Before the transcript was published, theauthorities at Poprad airport had insisted thatthe police were to blame for the incident.

See GOOF pg 2

Airport staff also erred;police missteps accumulate

Industry posts year-on-year growth

AFTER 13 months of suffering,Slovakia’s industrial sector has postedthe first year-on-year results that mar-ket watchers are able – with at least alittle more confidence – to refer to assigns of recovery. Industrial outputgrew by 1.5 percent in November 2009compared to the same month in 2008,according to Slovakia’s statistics au-thority. Though pleasing to the crisis-weary eye, the data has not broughtmuch surprise to the markets, sinceimproving foreign demand and the lowbasis effect from the previous year had

already signalled likely growth. Butthey say December 2009 might turn outto have been an even stronger monthin terms of production growth.

The Slovak Statistics Office repor-ted the largest year-on-year increase –16.2 percent – in the production ofvehicles, which is one of the maindrivers of Slovakia’s economy. Produc-tion of machinery and equipment roseby 8.2 percent year-on-year and theproduction of electrical appliances pos-ted 7.3-percent growth. Production ofmetals grew by 4.7 percent when com-pared to November 2008.

“The November data for industryhas not really brought anything sur-prising, since the overall growth inproduction into the positive zone had

been expected,” VÚB Banka senior ana-lyst Martin Lenko said. “The improvingtrend, backed by reviving foreign de-mand and the basis effect from lastyear, should continue in the forthcom-ing months.”

Mária Valachyová senior analystwith Slovenská Sporiteľňa, anotherbank, had also expected growth.

“Industrial production has beengradually increasing and compared toits nadir in December 2008, after clean-ing the data of seasonal influences, it isnow approximately 20 percent higher,even though it has still not reachedpre-crisis levels,” Valachyová told TheSlovak Spectator.

See DATA pg 4

Vol. 16, No. 2 Monday, January 18, 2010 - Sunday, January 24, 2010

FOCUSof this issue

On sale nowOn sale now FOCUSof this issue

SLOVAKSAND SLOVAKBRAND NAMES from page 6

NEWS

Dzurinda offer rejectedWith opposition parties gear-ing up for a national electionlater this year, the Freedomand Solidarity (SaS) party hasrebuffed a partnership offerfrom SDKÚ.

pg 2

Judges complainFour Slovak judges havelodged a compaint with theEuropean Court of HumanRights against the election offormer justice ministerŠtefan Harabin as president ofSlovakia's Supreme Court.

pg 2

Assets law debatedTwo politicians, one of themthe prime minister, are bothproposing laws to forcesuspiciously wealthy citizensto explain how they acquiredtheir assets.

pg 3

OPINION

A vast conspiracyThe media and the oppositionare indispensable to the gov-ernment of Slovakia. To hearthe prime minister talk, thesebogeymen appear bent onthwarting all of the govern-ment’s good intentions.

pg 5

BUSINESS FOCUS

Slovakia's top brandsThe Slovak brands which havesurvived the political andeconomic upheavals of thelast 20 years are stronger thanever.

pg 6

From garage to globalFrom small beginnings, someof the newer Slovak firms areoutsmarting the competitionand capturing customersaround the world.

pg 7

CULTURE

New architectureA new book examines some ofthe best new buildings con-structed in Slovakia duringthe recent boom years.

pg 11

SSELECT FOREX RATES€ benchmark as of January 14

CANADA CAD 1.49 CZECH REP. CZK 26.05RUSSIA (1000:1) RUB 42.67GREAT BRITAIN GBP 0.89

HUNGARY HUF 267.40JAPAN JPY 132.88POLAND PLN 4.06USA USD 1.45

Angry truckers extractheavy toll from Fico

PROTESTING truckers got back intotheir parked trucks and returned to theroads: but it took a prime ministerialpromise to lower excise tax on dieselfuel to get them on the move. Aftermuch prodding, Prime Minister RobertFico yielded to the truckers on January11 after massive protests against theelectronic highway toll collection sys-tem, which was launched in Slovakiaon January 1, 2010.

The protest organised by the Unionof Road Transporters (UNAS) only a fewmonths ahead of national electionswas among the strongest-ever demon-strations of public opposition to thepolicies of the Fico government. A heapof manure, which one of the protestersleft in front of the Slovak Cabinet Of-fice, was pictured on the cover pages ofthe national press.

Speaking at the Presidential Palace,Fico, assisted by President IvanGašparovič and Speaker of ParliamentPavol Paška, promptly found a scape-goat to blame for the culmination oftensions. After their speciallysummoned meeting, the trio –Slovakia’s top three constitutional offi-cials – condemned the media and theopposition for what they called supportfor the activities of the discontentedtransporters, who had blocked, amongother thoroughfares, Bratislava’sRožňavská Street.

“If someone incites violation of

laws it is a road to hell,” Fico told apress conference, adding that this dan-gerous phenomenon is manifested insupport for everything – even breakinglaws, disorder and chaos – as a way offighting against his government.

Speaker Paška said that the gov-ernment would not yield to any pres-sure and that it would be unfortunate iffor those couple of months until theparliamentary elections instead of a“correct political competition”someone were to run around with apetrol canister and matches just be-cause they were unable to offer a realalternative.

Gašparovič’s contribution was tosay that the protest had not broughtanything positive to Slovakia.

See UNAS pg 4

BY BEATA BALOGOVÁSpectator staff

US Interbluemorphs intoSwiss firm

INTERBLUE Group, the mysterious US-basedfirm which regularly made headlines in Slov-akia because of its central role in a dubious dealunder which Slovakia sold it quotas to emit 15million tonnes of carbon dioxide at a price wellbelow that obtained by neighbouring coun-tries for their quotas, has ceased to exist.

The Slovak Environment Ministry willnow negotiate any further details or issuessurrounding its sale of the country’s unusedcarbon dioxide emissions quotas with thefirm’s successor, Interblue Europe, after therights of the mystery firm – originally based inSnohomish, a small town in Washington Statein the US – were apparently transferred to thisnew company based in Switzerland.

See WHO? pg 3

BY BEATA BALOGOVÁSpectator staff

BY BEATA BALOGOVÁSpectator staff

BY MICHAELA STANKOVÁSpectator staff

GOOF: Police station escapee on the runContinued from pg 1

But based on the communicationbetween the pilot and the control tower, air-port control tower staff, who work under theauthority of the Transport Ministry, havealso had to face blame for some of the errors.

The Transport Ministry reacted to pub-lication of the transcript by announcing thatthe incident will be inspected by Slovakia’sAviation Office, the authority entrusted withmonitoring whether air transport legislationis followed. The ministry refused furthercomment on the incident until the inspec-tion is finished, the TASR newswire reported.

The transcript also corroborated state-ments made by Danube Wings on January 6,in which the airline said the pilot was not in-formed about the fact that the onboard sub-stance was an actual explosive.

According to Petr Somol, executive secur-ity director of Czech Airlines, all parties in-volved in an exercise must be previously in-formed about its nature.

“If an airline company is to be involvedin an exercise, its security departmentmust be informed sufficiently in advanceand then, of course, cooperate with theauthorities,” Somol told The Slovak Spec-tator.

Politics of the case

The Interior Ministry stated shortly afterthe story broke that they regarded the wholeincident to be “an individual professionalfailure by a police officer” who will face a dis-ciplinary proceeding.

After strong criticism of his position onthe incident, Interior Minister RobertKaliňák’s next step was to accept the previ-ously-offered resignation of Tibor Mako, thehead of the Border and Foreigners’ Police, theresponsible policing department.

The opposition parties charged that theincident stemmed from a systemic failure,rather than from an individual’s error, andcalled for the interior minister to take polit-ical responsibility. Leaders of the oppositionSlovak Democratic and Christian Union(SDKÚ), the Christian Democratic Movement(KDH) and the Hungarian Coalition Party(SMK) agreed at a meeting on January 13 toinitiate a no-confidence motion againstKaliňák at an extraordinary session of par-liament. They have stated that the action ofthe police violated Slovakia’s constitution aswell as national and international rules.

“Citizens were exposed to risk and

threat,” KDH leader Ján Figeľ said, as quotedby the SITA newswire, adding that it wasalso an unprecedented international stulti-fication which discredited Slovakia verymuch in the eyes of its partners in the fightagainst terrorism.

“Kaliňák is better in business than at theministry,” SITA quoted Figeľ as saying.

Prior, four opposition deputies from theparliament’s security committee as well asthe HZDS deputy in the committee, JánKovarčík, filed a request for an extraordinarysession of the committee at which Kaliňákwould be expected to answer questions re-garding the incident.

Martin Pado, an SDKÚ deputy who wasamong the initiators of the special session ofthe committee, said the MPs believe Kaliňákis politically responsible for the incident.

“It happened in his department, ithappened at an office that falls directly un-der his control, under the man that he him-self appointed,” Pado told The Slovak Spec-tator, specifying that Mako was appointed byKaliňák and was a direct subordinate.

Pado rejected the Interior Ministry’s as-sertion that the incident was the result ofan individual error. He maintains it was asystemic failure since there are no rules in aspecific document that tell police how toreact during such an incident during atraining activity.

Prime Minister Robert Fico has so farsupported the interior minister. In a state-ment reported by the SITA newswire onJanuary 7, Fico said there was no reason forKaliňák to resign and that similar exerciseswith sniffer dogs had been conducted atairports for a long time, including duringthe previous government.

Pado, who served as interior minister in2006, rejected that statement.

“Let them show one document wheresomething such as that is written, signedby someone from the management of thepolice or the Interior Ministry in the past,”Pado said.

He said he agreed entirely with whatMako’s predecessor, Michal Borgula, toldthe press on January 12: that the system ofthe work was the same as before, but thepractice was different because real samplesof dangerous substances had never beenput in the luggage of civilians without theirprior knowledge.

“Apart from that, there were always ef-forts to test the luggage coming to the air-port from the aeroplane and not vice versa,”Pado said.

Is Kaliňák’s chair wobbling?

The non-confidence motion in Kaliňákis probably doomed to fail, as the oppositionparties do not hold the necessary number ofvotes in parliament. Junior coalition leaderVladimír Mečiar from the HZDS told a pressconference on January 12 that his party willunder no circumstances vote againstKaliňák. At the same press conference,however, he said he does not “understandthe tolerance” that Kaliňák has shown inthe chief of the Police Corps, Ján Packa.

“This man has nothing to do in the postand he is responsible for these steps,” TASRquoted Mečiar as saying.

However, HZDS deputy Ján Kovarčík,who had signed the request for extraordin-ary session of the security committee alongwith opposition deputies, believes thatKaliňák bears political responsibility forthis case.

“Prime Minister Fico doesn’t have thesame meter for ministers,” Kovarčík toldthe Sme daily. “Kaliňák is lucky to be a Smerdeputy chairman. He should have beendealt with long ago.”

Kovarčík added that he had never fullyopposed the minister since he was bound bythe coalition treaty, but that he believes thenumerous mistakes and incidents in the in-terior ministry are a result of the minister’smismanaging – such as frequent changes ofhigh political posts.

“And the minister appoints nomineeseven for politically-lower posts,” Kovarčíksaid.

The opposition raised their voicesagainst Kaliňák even louder after Sme repor-ted on January 13, the day they were decid-ing on the non-confidence motion, that aman suspected of drug-related crimes hadescaped from a police station in Senica inwestern Slovakia on December 29 and wasstill on the run.

Sme wrote that the suspect managed toescape even while handcuffed and that thepolice were still trying to find him.

The news only emerged after an an-onymous reader tipped off Sme about the in-cident. The police had not publicly reportedthe suspect’s escape and only confirmed thatit had happened after the newspaper madespecific enquiries.

“What other scandal has to surface be-fore Interior Minister Kaliňák takes politicalresponsibility?” asked opposition MP MartinFedor of SDKÚ, commenting on the most re-cent incident.

SaS rejects Dzurinda ascoalition leader

WITH 2010 having now arrivedon the calendar, time is passingquickly and reminding opposi-tion leaders that they might nothave too many opportunities leftto change their standings beforethe June parliamentary elec-tions. Many of the oppositionparties are trying to catch up onwhat they have neglected orpostponed in the past three and ahalf years and now at least thetheoretical possibilities for pre-election cooperation are takingmore concrete shape.

The biggest opposition party,the Slovak Democratic and Chris-tian Union (SDKÚ), initiated ameeting of centre-right parties inmid-December that proved less

than fruitful. Subsequently, theSDKÚ apparently decided to pickone of those parties and make it apartnership offer for the 2010 par-liamentary elections. The relat-ively new and still rather small

party Freedom and Solidarity(SaS), founded by economistRichard Sulík, was chosen as apotential partner.

“I believe it was a rather gen-erous offer from SDKÚ, since it’s

a bigger party with solid supportand certain political and expertcapital,” political analyst anddirector of the non-government-al Institute for Public AffairsGrigorij Mesežnikov told TheSlovak Spectator. He said that theSDKÚ probably realised that aconsiderable portion of SaSvoters are former or potentialSDKÚ voters and that any differ-ences in values between the twoparties are not very large. As aresult, SDKÚ hoped that voterswould accept such cooperation.

However generous the offermight have been, the SaS Repub-lican Council stated on January 5that they would agree to such co-operation only if the coalitionwere led by someone other thanSDKÚ leader Mikuláš Dzurinda,whom they labelled unaccept-able to SaS voters.

See SDKÚ pg 9

Judges complain to StrasbourgFOUR Slovak judges, MiroslavGavalec, Zuzana Ďurišová,Elena Berthotyová and PeterPaluda, have lodged a com-plaint with the European Courtof Human Rights in Strasbourgchallenging the election ofSlovakia’s Supreme Court Pres-ident, Štefan Harabin. The textof their submission was pub-lished on the websitewww.sudcovia.sk, the SITAnewswire reported.

The Judicial Council, thesupreme self-governing body ofSlovakia’s judiciary, electedHarabin, a former justice min-ister, to the post of SupremeCourt president in June 2009.While justice minister Hara-bin, who was previously a Su-preme Court judge, had his ju-dicial functions suspended. Thefour judges claim that becauseHarabin was serving as a min-ister he was not entitled to seekthe post of Supreme Court pres-ident, as he was not a Supreme

Court judge at the time of theelection. According to Slovaklaw, only a judge of the Su-preme Court can be elected tobe its president.

Moreover, the four judgesstate that Harabin, as justiceminister, could have directlyinfluenced the careers of somemembers of the Judicial Coun-cil which thus endangered theindependence of their decision-making in the voting.

Similar claims are currentlybefore Slovakia’s Constitution-al Court. On January 12 thehead of the Office of the Consti-tutional Court told the TASRnewswire that delays in takingup the case are due to objec-tions raised by the four judgesagainst judges sitting on theConstitutional Court.

The four judges have objec-ted that a member of the senateand a reporting judge are al-legedly good friends with Ha-rabin, TASR wrote.

NEWS in short

2 January 18 – 24, 2010 NEWS

Richard Sulík (left) at the December opposition meeting with BelaBugár (centre) and Mikuláš Dzurinda (right). Photo: Sme - V. Šimíček

Author of critical Lesy SR letter resignsA STAFF member of the generaldirectorate of the state-runforestry company Lesy SR, JánMičovský, whose critical openletter addressed to the sittingdirector of the company in June2009 launched a process whichculminated in a reshuffle of thecompany’s senior manage-ment, issued an “open notice”announcing that he was leav-ing his position in the companyon January 12, the SITA news-wire reported.

Mičovský announced hisresignation to protest the fail-ure of the company’s newmanagement to respond to al-legations of cronyism and inef-fective handling of thecompany’s property whichwere described by Lesy SR em-ployees in a letter addressed tothe prime minister and agricul-ture minister on June 24, 2009.

“The management is notwilling to face these serious ac-cusations head on, it chooses

ostrichism and says it will waitfor the results of a policeinvestigation,” Mičovský said,as quoted by SITA.

He said another reason forsubmitting his resignation issolidarity with former col-leagues from the communica-tions department of Lesy SR,who helped him prepare lastyear’s open letter, who weresacked by Lesy SR at the end of2009.

Mičovský said that at theend of January he, along withhis former colleagues at LesySR, will submit to Prime Minis-ter Robert Fico a petition calledPeople for Forests, signed bymore than 18,000 people sinceJune, demanding that forestryorganisations and companiesin Slovakia responsibly andtransparently manage thecountry’s forests, withoutpolitical influence and inter-ference from interest groups,SITA wrote.

Publisher sues Prime Minister Fico

7 PLUS COMPANY, the publish-er of the Plus Jeden Deň dailyand the Plus 7 Dní weekly fileda lawsuit against Prime Minis-ter Robert Fico on January 12.The publisher is demanding anapology from Fico for accusingit and other periodical publish-ers of mafia practices.

In December 2009 Fico ac-cused the publishers ofSlovakia’s major daily newspa-

pers of plotting a unified cam-paign against his Smer partyand then took his commentsone step further by comparingSlovakia’s print media to themafia.

The publishers strongly ob-jected to Fico’s charges and themajor dailies printed a state-ment on December 12 in whichthe publishers wrote that“Prime Minister Fico lies”.

Thousands sign petition against casinoTHOUSANDS of Slovaks havealready signed a petitionagainst the construction of amulti-purpose complex calledMetropolis, known also as the‘mega-casino’, planned forJarovce, on the outskirts ofBratislava.

The exact number of signa-tures will be announced at theend of January or when thenumber exceeds 100,000, theSITA newswire reported. At themoment, 20 citizen associ-

ations as well as religious or-ganisations, churches and mu-nicipalities are supporting thepetition drive which was star-ted on December 22. The peti-tion demands that state repres-entatives and municipal au-thorities prohibit the construc-tion of the Metropolis projectin Slovakia by TriGranit, one ofEurope's largest developers.

Compiled by Spectator staff

from press reports

BY MICHAELA STANKOVÁSpectator staff

WHO? Little clearerContinued from pg 1

The Slovak daily PlusJeden Deň broke the story inits January 12 issue about thedemise on December 29 ofwhat has regularly been calleda ‘US garage firm’.

On the same day, Envir-onment Minister Jozef Medveďsummoned a press conferenceand announced that JanaLutken is the authorised rep-resentative of the successorfirm and that she is willing tomeet with the ministry inSwitzerland at Slovakia’s gen-eral consulate in Zurich. Themeeting should take placesometime after January 20,Medveď said, as quoted by theSITA newswire.

The ministry has been at-tempting to obtain a bonuspayment of €15 million fromInterblue Group for spendingthe original proceeds from thesale of the excess emissionsquotas on so-called greenprojects. The contract with In-terblue purportedly includedan option that if Slovakia spentthe fund within the ‘Green In-vestment Scheme’ (GIS), thecountry was eligible for a bo-nus payment of an additional€1 per tonne, or €15 million intotal. The Slovak governmenthas said that its nationwidethermal insulation pro-gramme, funded with proceedsfrom the contract, falls underthe GIS scheme.

According to Medveď, thestate will do its best to collectthe €15 million from Interblueand also continue negotiationsregarding the contract in sucha way that the country “getsout from the uneven businessposition which flows from thecontract”. The minister alsosaid that Lutken has never toldSlovakia that she would notpay the €15 million and this iswhy the ministry has not beenmaking prompt efforts to can-cel the contract, SITA wrote.

Almost nothing is publiclyknown about Interblue Group.The government has re-peatedly brushed off media en-quiries about who any addi-tional investors or beneficiar-ies of its contractual partner inthe multi-million-euro dealmight be, insisting that iteither does not know or thatthe details are confidential.

Slovakia may have lost asmuch as €66 million on thesales price that was negotiatedwith Interblue Group, accord-

ing to opposition parties. Thesale has played a part in thesacking of two Slovak envir-onment ministers, ViliamTurský and Ján Chrbet, both ofwhom were nominees of theSlovak National Party.

The political ethics watch-dog, Fair-Play Alliance, haspublished several documentson its website such as the certi-ficate of formation of InterblueGroup and the initial annualreport filed with authorities ofWashington State. The latterlisted the nature of the busi-ness as an “asset holdingcompany”. The state licensingrenewal dated July 6, 2009,names the governing people asJana Lutken and Hans Grop,which according to head of thealliance, Zuzana Wienk, con-firms that they were also theowners of the firm, not only theauthorised representatives, asreported by SITA.

The 2009 renewal alsochanged the principal place ofInterblue Group’s business toan address in Miami Beach,Florida, which was listed as theaddress of the executor of itsoriginal registration, Alex Hla-vacek. The alliance also pub-lished a confirmation that In-terblue Group was not re-gistered with the WashingtonState Department of Revenuefor tax purposes.

A significant differencebetween Interblue Group andits successor Interblue Europeis the fact that the US companywas a limited liability company(LLC) while Interblue Europe isregistered as a joint stock com-pany, the Sme daily noted.

Opposition parties called onPrime Minister Robert Fico totell the public about the stepsthat his government will un-dertake in response to the factthat Interblue Group LLC hadceased to exist. The fact thatthe company ceased operationsdoes not mean that its businessliabilities are gone but thatthey pass to its legal successor,said SDKÚ MP Pavol Frešo.

Frešo said he is concernedthat Slovakia may have addi-tional problems if the legal suc-cessor demands that it be al-lowed to purchase additionalemissions quotas at a pricelower than that at whichneighbouring countries soldtheir emission quotas , SITA re-ported. Interblue Group’s con-tract gave it an option to pur-chase additional excess CO2quotas from Slovakia.

3January 18 – 24, 2010NEWS

Prime minister seeksconsensus on assets law

THE ORIGIN of assets accumu-lated by some Slovak politicianshas remained unclear for manyyears. That, as well as the factthat Slovakia still lacks appro-priate and effective laws in thisarea, is a good reason for a bigpre-election issue – such as pro-posing a new law on the origin ofassets – to climb to the top tier ofthe political agenda as the Junenational elections approach.

Prime Minister Robert Ficoand Christian Democratic MPDaniel Lipšic started the pre-election competition in the firstweek of 2010 with proposals sim-ilar in many respects to eachother's. It is Fico’s second at-tempt to enact such a law, as hisfirst legislative proposal waspassed by parliament in 2005 butwas subsequently ruled uncon-stitutional by the ConstitutionalCourt in September 2008 overconcerns about retroactivity inthe law as well as argumentsthat it interfered with owner-ship rights. The ConstitutionalCourt also ruled that the burdenof proof was inappropriatelyplaced on citizens rather thanpublic and state institutions andthat its procedures would start anew, unknown and non-trans-parent way of expropriating cit-izens’ personal property.

The new proposals

To resolve the constitutionalconflicts found by the court, bothFico and Lipšic are proposing anamendment to the constitution.

“We will add to Article 20 anew paragraph that will allowthe passing of a special law thatwill deal with assets acquired il-legally or acquired in such a waythat, for instance, someonebought an asset with illegalincome,” Fico said, in describingwhat he called “a small amend-ment to the constitution”, asquoted by the SITA newswire,with the effect that the constitu-tion would then only protectlegally-acquired property.

While Lipšic proposes a sim-ilar amendment, there are sev-eral differences between hisdraft and Fico’s. In Fico’s propos-al, police and prosecutors wouldconsider designating a person’sassets suspicious if there was adifference between their de-clared income and the value oftheir assets of at least 1,500 timesthe monthly minimum wage,currently slightly over €300.Lipšic proposes that the law cov-er assets that exceed 500 timesthe minimum wage.

Fico proposes that the bur-den of proving to a court that the

origin of one’s assets is legal willbe on the person charged and ifthis is not proven, their assetswould be transferred to the state.Lipšic proposes that Slovakia’sfinancial police should forwardany suspicions about acquiredassets to the prosecutor’s office,which in turn, would decidewhether to take a case to thecourts. When a case reachedcourt, a citizen whose assetswere being challenged would berequired to provide security,similar to bail, amounting to thedifference between their legally-proven income and the assets inquestion. The citizen would thenbe given five years to prove thatthose assets were acquired leg-ally; if this were not done, thesecurity would become the prop-erty of the state.

The need forbroad agreement

The cabinet approved Fico’sdraft at its session on January 13and passed it to parliament as agovernment proposal.

“It’s about the fulfilment ofthe programme statement ofthe government,” Fico, who isalso Smer party leader, said pri-or to the cabinet session, asquoted by SITA. “I therefore ex-pect the coalition partners tosupport the proposal.”

In the end only ministersnominated by Smer voted forthe proposal. Smer’s coalitionpartners, the Slovak NationalParty (SNS) and the Movementfor a Democratic Slovakia(HZDS), did not back the draft.The heads of both parties havehad problems in the past ex-plaining the origins of their per-sonal assets – the HZDS’sVladimír Mečiar has neverprovided a satisfactory explana-tion of how he managed to pur-chase his expensive Elektra villain Trenčianske Teplice and theSNS’s Ján Slota came under firein the media last year when hewas photographed driving aluxury car and flying a jet plane.

The HZDS has stated that itwants the government and par-liament to first consider a draftlaw on origin of assets preparedby HZDS-nominated JusticeMinister Viera Petríková inDecember 2009, SITA reported.

Mečiar said on January 12,a day before the government’ssession, that he could notsupport Fico’s draft because ofits retroactivity provision andbecause it would interferewith Slovakia’s inheritanceprocedures.

An amendment to Slovakia’sconstitution can be passed onlywith a two-thirds majority ofMPs' votes. Without the supportof his coalition partners, Ficowill be forced to rely to a largeextent on support from MPsfrom opposition parties.

“I have an interest inpassing this law and I don’t carewho votes for it,” Fico said afterthe government’s session,adding that he will be gratefuleven if a cleaning lady raises herhand to support the amend-ment, SITA reported.

Fico did not specify hisplans for negotiating with theopposition. However, the gov-ernment made a step towardspotential agreement by drop-ping a paragraph from the draftthat would have limited thescope of the law only to assetsacquired after 1990. This hadbeen criticised by Lipšic, whosaid that it would make the lawineffective. The Sme daily alsoreported that the Constitution-al Court had rejected such a lim-itation in its 2008 ruling.

Ideas from an NGO

Pavel Nechala, a lawyer withthe non-governmental organ-isation Transparency Interna-tional Slovakia, said that Slov-akia needs a law that would helpin taking illegally-acquiredproperty away from its illegit-imate owners.

“But given the present mis-trust of citizens in Slovak courts

and the number of cases Slovakpolice are floundering in, such asthe explosive sent to Ireland orthe Franciscans’ case, it’s risky tointroduce a legal norm that trans-fers the burden of proof onto cit-izens and is retroactive,” Nechalatold The Slovak Spectator.

Nechala suggested that foran origin-of-assets law to be ef-fective it must have a certainbasis which he expressed inthree distinct steps. First, he saidit is necessary to put more pres-sure on public officials to submitcomplete and comprehensive as-set declarations as well as tohave well-functioning mechan-isms to verify the declarations,and to criminalise false state-ments made in the asset declara-tion. Secondly, he suggested thatcriminal responsibility shouldapply to people who are unableto explain the origins of their as-sets and added that persons whocould help reveal or prove the ex-istence of illegal income shouldbe motivated to do so.

“The motivation of such aperson could be the possibility toget 10 to 20 percent of the assetsrevealed as having been acquiredfrom illegal income, which couldmotivate Slovaks to becomemore willing to file criminalcomplaints,” Nechala said,adding that in a 2009 survey only6 percent of the respondents saidthey would report such suspi-cions to applicable authorities.Nechala said that the third pre-condition for such a law to be ef-fective would be a reliable sys-tem of protection for those indi-viduals who report their suspi-cions to authorities.

Nechala noted that legisla-tion regarding the origin of as-sets is very topical right now onthe international level, becausethe Conference of the StatesParties to the United NationsConvention against Corruptiondealt last November with thetopic of returning property ac-quired by corrupt practices.Slovakia did not participate inthe conference.

Origin-of-assetslaw hits politicalagenda again as

election yearbegins

BY MICHAELA STANKOVÁSpectator staff

Daniel Lipšic Photo: SITA

Big money is at stake over Slovakia's CO2 emissions. Photo: SITA/AP

Robert Fico Photo: ČTK

4 January 18 – 24, 2010 BUSINESS

DSS companies earn €150,000THE SIX pension fund man-agement companies (DSS) op-erating in Slovakia succeededin growing the savings of about1.5 million savers in the last sixmonths and thus earned addi-tional payments that they areentitled to from the proceeds.Together, they received over€150,000 from the yields, thePravda daily reported.

“Even with these paymentsfor the appreciation of pensionsavings, however, the overallsum [we received] was lowerthan before the change inlegislation,” said VladimírŠošovička, the board director ofthe ČSOB DSS, Pravda reported.“That cut the payment for theadministration of a pension

fund from 0.065 to 0.025 per-cent of the average monthlyvalue of the assets in the fundas of July 2009.”

The changes mean that theDSSs are now entitled to an ad-ditional payment for appreci-ation of funds, which each DSSgets only if it achieves a setlevel of growth in the savingsthat its fund manages.

In the event that the valueof savings depreciates thepension fund managementcompany is obliged to make upthe difference to clients fromits own funds. As a result,most DSSs have since shed al-most all their holdings ofhigh-risk, high-growthshares, Pravda reported.

€618,000 paid in eco-heating subsidies

SLOVAKIA’s Economy Min-istry has provided over€618,000 in subsidies tohouseholds to purchase solarcollectors and biomass-fuelboilers as part of a programmedesigned to increase the useof biomass and solar power,the ministry told the SITAnewswire.

An expert commission hasapproved 603 applications thusfar. As of late 2009, the min-istry paid out €499,500 on 490applications for biomass-firedboilers and solar collectors,while 113 applicants will re-ceive approximately €118,600in early 2010.

About €7.381 million re-

mains in the programme’sbudget for 2010.

Demand for subsidies is in-creasing and households showmore interest in the solar col-lectors than in biomass-fuelboilers to use for their heating.The head of the communica-tion department at the SlovakInnovation and EnergyAgency, Katarína Antalová,said the agency had received1,570 applications for subsidiesto finance the purchase ofbiomass-fired boilers (1,335 ap-plications) and solar collectorsto date, SITA reported.

Compiled by Spectator staff

from press reports

BUSINESS in short

New NBS Governor appointedSLOVAK President IvanGašparovič formally appointedJozef Makúch to the post ofgovernor of the National Bankof Slovakia (NBS) on January 12,the SITA newswire reported.

Makúch replaces IvanŠramko in the position. Beforethe ceremony to appoint thenew governor, Prime MinisterRobert Fico met Šramko andcommented that the centralbank under its outgoing gov-ernor was a respected institutionin the European context and thatthe government paid attentionto its opinions, SITA wrote.

Šramko was appointed NBSgovernor on January 1, 2005.

Between 2002 and 2005 he heldthe post of NBS vice-governor.As NBS governor he represen-ted the Slovak central bank onthe board of governors of theEuropean Central Bank, andalso served as a governor of theInternational Monetary Fundand as an alternate governor ofthe European Bank for Devel-opment and Reconstruction.

The new NBS governor,Jozef Makúch, was appointeda member of the NBS bankboard in 2005, taking up hispost in 2006. Since 2007, hehas served as NBS executivedirector for security andpremises.

DATA: Significant trade surplus in January-November 2009Continued from pg 1

According to Lenko, this trend is also con-firmed by the December data for confidence in in-dustry, in which forecast production for the nextthree months has significantly improved.

“We expect that industrial production in thelast month of 2009 grew by 10 percentyear-on-year,” Lenko told The Slovak Spectator.

Valachyová agrees that the same factors, thelow comparison basis and growth during the yearwill mean there was significant year-on-yeargrowth of approximately 15-20 percent.

“The data can be interpreted as a revival of theeconomy even though the most significantmonth-on-month growth emerged in the summerand autumn,” Valachyová said. “We expect thatmonth-on-month growth will, in the comingmonths, be milder since the effect of the old-carscrapping bonus is evaporating and interest in

new cars will be smaller because people who hadbeen considering purchase of a car will obviouslyhave done so using the discounts.”

The key sectors of the economy – production ofvehicles, production of machines, electronic ap-pliances and production of iron – have fuelled thisgrowth, said Lenko.

However, the analysts also suggested that eventhough industry might have put its worst timesbehind it, this does not mean that milder impactsof the crisis, at least, will not still be felt.

“I dare to say that despite the improving eco-nomic activities all [economic] branches will con-tinue to feel to a smaller degree the negative im-pacts of the crisis,” Lenko said. “Though demand isreviving, it is doing so only very slowly.”

Slovakia’s foreign trade balance posted a sur-plus in November 2009 of €259.4 million, com-pared with a revised surplus in October of €352.6million. The cumulative 11-month foreign trade

surplus amounted to €1.393 billion. During thesame period a year ago, Slovakia recorded a for-eign trade deficit of €391 million, according to thestatistics authority.

Exports in November posted year-on-yeargrowth for the first time in 2009, up by 2.7 percentto €3.995 billion. In the previous month, exportshad declined by 11.7 percent year-on-year. Importsrecorded their lowest figure this year in November,though the indicator did not reach 2008 levels, theSITA newswire wrote.

“I personally had expected a drop in exports inNovember of 4 percent,” said Lenko. “There is nomarket consensus about the growth of exports. Inthe same way, detailed data for foreign trade inNovember are not available – these will be releasednext month – and thus it is impossible to tell withcertainty what was behind the year-on-yeargrowth.” However, based on the industrialbranches, all export-oriented, which had previ-

ously retarded the growth of industry it is possibleto assume that exports of cars, machines andmetals were the drivers, said Lenko.

“We expect that in December exports will growfurther, while the fall in imports should flattenout,” said Lenko. Valachyová too assumes thatyear-on-year growth in exports will be more signi-ficant in upcoming months for the same reasonsthat are propelling growth in industrial produc-tion: the low basis and improving foreign demandfor industrial products seen during the previousmonths. Slower imports have also contributed,along with the increase in exports, to the signific-ant foreign trade surplus, she said. The structure offoreign trade has not yet been published.

“I assume, however, that lower imports are areflection of the same tendencies from the preced-ing months: lower inward foreign investment,imports of industrial products and most probablyalso consumer goods,” Valachyová concluded.

UNAS: 'Toll system does not work well'Continued from pg 1

Yet opposition parties saidthat it was precisely such talkthat constituted political cam-paigning, dubbing the top statetrio’s talk ‘annoying theatre’. Theleader of the Christian Democrat-ic Movement (KDH), Ján Figeľ,said that the Fico-Gašparovič-Paška performance was an clearexample of them abusing theirpositions. Slovak Democratic andChristian Union (SDKÚ) deputychairman Ivan Mikloš said thatFico had acted like a cowardwhen, after yielding to the pro-testers, the following day heroared from the PresidentialPalace that the activities of thetruckers were illegal.

Under the new e-toll system,which came with a price tag ofover €850 million, operators ofvehicles heavier than 3.5 tonnes,buses and other vehicles holdingmore than nine people includingthe driver, are now charged bythe kilometre for driving on atotal of 2,032 kilometres of Slovakhighways and first-class roads.While the creator and operator ofthe system, SkyToll, describedthe launch as smooth, transport-ers queued for up to 10 hours atborder crossings and called itfaulty and unfair.

In order to cover the hole thatcutting the excise tax on fuel islikely to open up in the statebudget, Fico has announced aplan to merge some ministriesand thus save costs. By the timeThe Slovak Spectator went toprint, no information hademerged about exactly whichministries would be merged, butit was already clear that the planpromised to generate a tug-of-war between the partners in thecurrent ruling coalition.

The outcome

UNAS said on January 12 thatthe protest action had met its ob-jectives since most of the de-mands would be fulfilled. Thetransporters demanded cuts tothe excise tax on gasoline; tollcharges to be lifted from 1st cat-egory roads until the sections arefairly divided; a reduction infines for wrongly installed on-board units; and signs clearlymarking the tolled sections offirst-category roads to be erectedby the end of June 2010.

The excise tax on dieselshould drop from €0.481 per litreto €0.391 per litre by the end ofJanuary, which should push

down diesel prices at petrol sta-tions from the current €1.14 perlitre about to €1.01.

The aim is that tolled vehiclespay only for the kilometres theyactually drive and not for wholesections, with drivers receivinginvoices with detailed informa-tion on the sections driven andresultant charges.

“These are not complete con-cessions to our demands, but wehave achieved them,” JaroslavPolaček of UNAS told the SITAnewswire. “I think in the historyof Slovakia nobody has achievedthis in such a form. But the factthat we have achieved conces-sions does not mean that we aredone. We will go on.”

Polaček said that the protesthas also been about the fact thatthe electronic toll collection sys-tem does not work well.

Rudolf Páleš of UNAS earlierhad said that the e-toll collectionis fair only if it works properly,adding that since the most ex-pensive bidder won the tender toset up the e-toll collection projectthe carriers expected that thesystem would work as it does inneighbouring countries.

Slovakia’s Association of RoadTransport Operators (Česmad)said the result of the protest wasa success for all road transport-ers, regardless of whether theyparticipated in the protest or not.Peter Halabrín said that Česmadshared the demands of UNAS butpreferred different means.

UNAS has alleged thatČesmad, which signed a contractwith SkyToll to operate contactcentres in Slovakia’s eight re-gions as well as 13 distribution

centres, supports the toll systembecause the association cancharge €112, not including VAT,for the installation of OBUs ac-cording to its contract.

The impact

Operators of bus lines areamong those who say the e-tollwill have an impact on their op-erations. Some have consideredcancelling lines, while at thesame time confirming an in-crease in bus fares.

“The electronic toll has gen-erated costs for transporters thatthey are unable to carry and it isnecessary to fully reflect these inthe fare,” Eva Vozárová, spokes-woman of bus operator SlovakLines, told The Slovak Spectator.

The company increased itsfares as of January 11 on severallong-distance lines.

“We are still doing the cal-culations and in the forthcom-ing days, or weeks at the latest,fares will gradually increase onother long-distance or inter-state lines as well, dependingon particular lines or theirroutes,” Vozárová said. “After[we receive] the first invoicesfor the electronic toll, furthercorrections could be made.”

According to Vozárová, thefare increase is sensitive andthus the company will treateach line individually.

“We are not making a flatprice hike but rather makingvery detailed calculations,”Vozárová said, adding that thisis why on one line between dif-ferent stops there might be dif-ferent price hikes. “We estim-

ate that fares will increase by 10percent on average.”

However, prices on inner-city and short-distance lines areregulated.

Some bus transporters hadalready narrowed their opera-tions on long-distance and in-ternational routes last year inresponse to the global economicdownturn. For example, busoperator SAD Žilina cut somelines, especially to destinationsin the Czech Republic, blamingcuts on a drop in the number ofpassengers.

The company provides mostof its services based on contractswith Žilina Region.

“All the expenses linked tothe installation of onboard unitsand the subsequent payment ofthe toll is an item the refund ofwhich can be requested fromthe procurer and thus the townsand municipalities will have todecide what approach theytake towards the increasingcosts,” Ivana Strelcová,spokeswoman of SAD Žilina,told The Slovak Spectator.

According to Strelcová, theyhave several options: “They willeither reach deeper into theirpockets and will pay the in-creased costs without impact-ing the passengers, or cut thenumber of lines or eventuallytransfer the burden of the toll byincreasing the fare.”

As to whether SAD Žilinaplans to increase fares,Strelcová said that the companywould re-evaluate fares after re-ceiving the first invoices.

“In fact, there is a [price]hike of 5 to 20 percent on partic-ular lines,” Strelcová said. “Weare also seriously consideringthe complete cancellation oflong-distance lines.”

Eurobus, another local busoperator, estimates that it willincur considerable extra ex-penses because of the toll system.Ľubomír Gerši, Director Generalof Eurobus, told The Slovak Spec-tator that his company’s addi-tional annual costs from the elec-tronic toll are expected to be€185,659 for local transportationand €166,946 for long-distanceand international routes, includ-ing the purchase and installationof onboard units.

Eurobus fares on local linesremain unchanged, whileprices for long-distance ticketshave gone up by about 7 to 10percent based on the type ofroute and the tolled sectionsused, Gerši said.

The new tolls are pushing up some bus fares. Photo: TASR

5January 18 – 24, 2010OPINION

The vast anti-Smer conspiracytakes shape in Fico's mind

THE MEDIA and the oppositionare indispensable to the gov-ernment of Slovakia. If RobertFico wills it, these bogeymenappear, in a thousand inimicalguises, in the statements of theprime minister’s crew, bent onthwarting any or all of thegovernment’s good intentions.The media and opposition canshake the pillars of democracyin this small central Europeancountry, as least according toFico’s recent statements. Whywould they do so? What wouldthey gain? These are questionsto which the reader will noteasily find answers – at leastnot in this piece.

After yielding to pressurefrom disgruntled truckers, whoexpressed their opposition tothe newly launched electronictoll collection system by block-ing roads and even leaving, al-legedly by accident, a heap ofmanure under ‘Fico’s window’at the Government Office, theprime minister was quick toblame the opposition and me-dia for supporting them.

This time, though, he wasassisted by the other two fig-ures who make up Slovakia’strio of top constitutional offi-cials: President IvanGašparovič, who secured asecond, four-year presidentialterm last year; and Speaker ofParliament Pavol Paška, whoselast vented his spleen on thesupposed evils of the oppositionand the media ahead of lastyear’s celebrations marking the20th anniversary of the VelvetRevolution.

At the time, Paška warnedof “media prostitution” afterthe press reported that some ofthe leading figures of the 1989revolution were less than im-pressed by Paška’s decision toinvite former communist big-wigs to the official state celeb-ration.

“If someone incites viola-tion of laws it is a road to hell,”Fico told a press conference,adding that this dangerousphenomenon is manifested insupport for everything – evenbreaking laws, disorder and

chaos – as a way of fightingagainst his government.

Then he called on the oppos-ition and media to present analternative to his government.It was all quite predictable.Though the prime minister hasnever learned to swallow mediacriticism, he has developed an-tidotes for himself such as suing

the press or ‘blessing’ it with aFico-style press code. What hehas not been accustomed to un-til now are massive protests bythe very people who he mightnormally expect to be amonghis voters. These havehappened just a couple ofmonths ahead of a general elec-tion, and have been targeted atthe prime minister who hasbeen trying to construct an im-age as a politician who supportsa ‘socially-oriented state’. Usingtaxpayer’s money to buy a spec-tacularly expensive toll systemthat those who use it describe asunjust has not done this image-building effort much good.

But the toll-turmoil endedat least partly satisfactorily forFico, since the truckers wenthome – with a promise of lower

excise tax on fuel – and thosewho caused the chaos, the me-dia and the opposition, weresingled out and publicly con-demned.

The government seemstempted to try the same anti-dote over the humiliating policefoul-up in which high explosivewas planted and then accident-ally left in the luggage of a Slov-ak man who unwittingly car-ried it to Ireland on a commer-cial flight.

Fault has already beenfound with the opposition: theprevious governments, includ-ing those led by the current op-position, trained sniffing dogsby planting explosives in pas-sengers’ luggage as well, we aretold.

And the media? Nothingcould be clearer: they wronglyreported the number of explos-ives being used; exaggeratedthe event; mixed up Bratislavaand Poprad Airports; etc, etc.Since the scandal made interna-tional headlines, however,these arguments will hardly cutit with the Irish, the audiencesof international news channels,or the readers of the world’spress.

True, these groups are notvery important for the govern-ment since few of them are po-tential Smer voters; and NewYork Times-reading, BBC-watching Smer voters are anequally select group.

Yet one of the “enemies”struck back: the publisher of thePlus Jeden Deň daily and thePlus 7 Dní weekly sued Fico onJanuary 12 for his media-phobicstatements in December 2009.The publisher is demanding anapology from Fico for accusingperiodical publishers of mafiapractices.

He claimed that the pub-lishers of Slovakia’s major dailynewspapers were plotting a uni-fied campaign against his Smerparty and then took his com-ments one step further by com-paring Slovakia’s print media tothe mafia. True to form, Ficoand his cronies could not careless.

BY BEATA BALOGOVÁSpectator staff

QUOTE OF THE WEEK:

Kamionisti

TRUCKERS are perhaps the leastlikely profession you would ex-pect to lead a social movementof any type. Yet there the“kamionisti” were, blocking thestreets of Slovak cities, talking tothe media about the hardshipsbrought upon them by the newtoll system, gaining the supportof people who have nothing incommon with truck transport,and eventually forcing PrimeMinister Fico to surrender tomost of their demands, a feat theopposition, the media, or evenFico’s own coalition partners canonly envy.

Two questions are especiallyinteresting – why kamionisti andhow come they succeeded? Thereare many groups in Slovakia thathave a reason to be angry. Teach-ers have to teach from old text-books because education ministerMikolaj mismanaged school re-form. Judges with decades of ex-perience in commercial law arebeing transferred to try criminalcases and vice versa, or have theiroffice temporarily suspended al-together based on absurd discip-linary charges, if they dare standup to Supreme Court boss ŠtefanHarabin or one of his henchmenin the judiciary.

Media have to pay hundredsof thousands of euros to coalitionpoliticians for alleged defama-tion, not to mention that “sleazysnakes”, “prostitutes”, or“hyenas” are the prime minister’scommonly used names for journ-alists, for whom he authored a

restrictive new press law. Po-licemen have to be upset with In-terior Minister Kaliňák for theway he handled the case of ex-plosive shipped to Dublin, or theescape of yet another suspectfrom police detention, because itmakes them all the laughingstock of the country. And the listcould go on and on.

So why are kamionisti thefirst ones to take really dramaticaction? First, professionals canprotest all they want, but it’s aheck of a lot easier to make peoplelisten to you when you’re sittingin a truck. But even more import-antly, the truckers had strongmotivation – their principalsource of income was beingthreatened – so they really hadlittle to lose. Teachers get theirregular pay, so do judges thatdon’t make a fuss, media fines arepaid by publishers, and police of-ficers can always hope that with anew minister things will get bet-ter. Judicial independence andfreedom of speech are nice con-cepts but in a country used to all

forms of totality and state dys-function they don’t easily getpeople excited.

Losing your living, that’s adifferent matter altogether. It caneasily be argued that for manypeople one of the principal reas-ons for supporting the Velvet Re-volution was a desire to share theliving standards of their Austrianneighbours. And that the Mečiargovernment fell in 1998 becausepeople saw in him an obstacle tothe country’s entry into the EU,another symbol of prosperity.

What was for the truckers amatter of sheer survival becamefor others an act of resistance.Slovakia sees a new corruptionscandal almost every week, yet notop politician has ever ended upin jail. Coalition party bossesSlota and Mečiar enjoy a life ofluxury with no credible way ofexplaining their wealth. It takescourts years, sometimes evendecades, to decide even simplecitizen disputes. People feel theyneed to bribe doctors to get qual-ity treatment. A police officer canplant an actual explosive in theluggage of a passenger, let him flyoff to Ireland, and nothing reallyhappens.

All this creates a sense of ten-sion which keeps building up,and supporting the truckersseemed to many as a good way tovent some steam. The efficientand very visible form of theprotest, the approaching parlia-mentary elections, and the fear offrustration he helped feed, ledFico to back off and do as thetruckers wanted. It’s no surprisethat when you create a truckloadof problems, you have to dealwith the kamionisti.

SLOVAK WORDOF THE WEEK

EDITORIAL

BY LUKÁŠ FILASpecial to the Spectator

"The Economy Ministry doesn't presently control anything.It seems to us somehow deaf-mute."

Slovak National Party (SNS) leader Ján Slota justifying his idea of merging the Economy Ministry andthe Ministry of Construction and Regional Development, which is controlled by SNS.

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

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Institutions engaged in protection ofindustrial property in Slovakia

Industrial Property Office of the Slovak RepublicThe office is a central state administrative body for industrialproperty protection.www.indprop.gov.sk

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Slovak Association for Trademark Products (SlovenskéZdruženie pre Značkové Výrobky)The main aim of the association is protection and support ofproducers of trademark products in areas affecting theproduction, market launch, distribution and sale of trademarkproducts.www.szzv.sk

6 January 18 – 24, 2010

Pop the Hubert!Guzzle the Zlatý Bažant!

THE COMMUNIST regime fell 20years ago and while politiciansof that time have long ago endedup in history’s waste dump,there are many much morepleasing things which havethankfully survived to this day.Slovaks have kept nibbling Hor-alka or Tatranka wafers andwhen thirsty, they still preferreaching for a Kofola soft drinkor a Zlatý Bažant beer. MostSlovaks welcomed in the NewYear with a glass of Hubert sektin their hands and after finish-ing a meal they continue towash their dishes with Jar de-tergent. There are quite a num-ber of local brands which foreignrivals have not succeeded inpushing out of the now highly-competitive Slovak market andexperts do not see nostalgia asthe main driving force behindthese loyal customers.

Local brands play an import-ant role in every country, espe-cially in the case of food andbeverage products. This is alsothe case in Slovakia where mostlydomestic brands of food anddrink have remained popular, forexample Kofola and Vinea softdrinks, Zlatý Bažant beer, Hor-alka wafers, Figaro chocolates,Rajo dairy products, Demänovkaliquor, and Hubert sekt (spark-ling wine), just to name a few.

“They are not popular be-cause of nostalgia, but rather be-cause people have gotten very ac-customed to them,” MarianTimoracký, marketing expertand managing partner of UnitedConsultants told The SlovakSpectator. “They have becomeinseparable parts of their every-day lives; they have built up a re-lationship with them.”

Timoracký sees Slovaks, ingeneral, as trademark-oriented

and, in comparison with othercountries, this orientation iseven stronger.

“Slovaks have a preference forbranded clothes, shoes, electron-ic devices, and other products,”he said. “They still have not hadenough of branded products,which they lacked for decades.”

But in Slovakia the trans-ition from socialism to capital-ism has also had its particularit-ies. For example, when Procter &Gamble, a US company, boughtthe Rakona company in the early1990s, it changed the name ofRakona’s detergent from Jar toFairy Ultra even though its com-position remained almost thesame. However, it soon becameclear that Slovak customers pre-ferred Jar, which had been pro-duced here since 1959, asTimoracký told the Sme daily. As

a result, Procter & Gamble re-turned the Jar brand name to themarket and it has remained hereever since.

According to sociologist Zuz-ana Kusá, a particular sentimentto a local product is not conveyedthrough a family in either Slovakor Czech society because theconcept almost did not existback in the 1990s.

“The nostalgia game is a newphenomenon which has beensuccessful only for a few years,”she told The Slovak Spectator.

Traditional local productsexperienced difficult times afterthe fall of the previous regimewhen foreign-branded products,which were unavailable here fordecades, flooded the Slovak andCzech markets.

See BRAND pg 8

Hubert remains the most popular sekt in Slovakia. Photo: SITA

Slovak brands havesurvived political

and economicupheavals

BY JANA LIPTÁKOVÁSpectator staff

Intellectual property protectionneeds more attention

THE PRE-1989 totalitarian regime, duringwhich public assets were deemed to belongto all and intellectual property was not un-derstood as private property, has left itstraces on Slovaks’ perception of intellectualproperty. But although there is still a lot ofwork to be done, the situation is improving.Greater focus by Slovakia on developing aknowledge-based economy could furtherenhance the situation.

“Awareness among the Slovak publicabout industrial rights is still not at the re-quired level,” Július Šípoš, spokesperson ofthe Industrial Property Office (IPO) of theSlovak Republic, told The Slovak Spectator.“This lower awareness perhaps stems fromhistory, when the term intellectual propertyactually did not exist. During the previous

regime all assets produced belonged to alland intellectual property was not under-stood as private property; nor was it under-stood that the value of a trademark can beseveral times higher than the tangible assetsof a company.”

Nevertheless, Šípoš believes that it iswrong to say that things are not improving,because people involved in inventing, or de-veloping new technological solutions ordesigns, and those who want to protectnames linked to their goods or services knowhow important protection of intellectualproperty is. Such people also know how to goabout protecting their intellectual propertyor are interested in the subject and fre-quently engage patent attorneys.

“But there are also many cases wherepeople become more closely interested inthe protection of intellectual property onlyafter they realise that their rights are en-dangered or that somebody is violatingthem,” said Šípoš.

Firms are also starting to realise to agreater extent the importance of protectionof intellectual property.

“Effective management of intellectualproperty increases competitiveness andresults in a strategic advantage,” said Šípoš.“But there are still a lot of people ignoringthe legal protection of their ideas. However,this has a wider context as there are alsoproblems in Slovakia with enforcement ofrights. Enforcing protection in a legal way inSlovakia is not only time-consuming butalso expensive.”

Šípoš believes that a coordinated atti-tude by more involved institutions may helpincrease Slovaks’ awareness about protec-tion of intellectual property. He would wel-come more attention being paid to the issueof intellectual property as early as second-ary-school level and for it to become part ofthe curriculum at schools.

See IPO pg 8

Some traditional Slovak brandsZlatý Bažant (Golden Pheasant)Zlatý Bažant beer got its name from the prevalence of pheasantsin barley fields around the town of Hurbanovo, where it is made:the presence of the birds have always signalled a rich crop andexcellent quality. The Zlatý Bažant brand dates back to 1969,when the brewery was set up in Hurbanovo. The launch anddevelopment of the malthouse and brewery was inspired inparticular by the favourable climatic conditions of the region.Moreover, the lack of a local beer laid the basis for future salesand the proximity of a significant port, in Komárno, allowed theproduct to be transported to more remote markets. The beer hadestablished itself in foreign markets as early as the 1970s.This was partly thanks to a number of innovations. Forexample, the brewery in Hurbanovo was the first in any of thethen-communist countries to sell beer in cans.

HoralkaHoralka has been the king of Slovak wafers for decades. Neitherthe introduction of the free market nor competition from otherwafers has been able to oust it from the number-one spot inSlovakia, according to the Hospodárske Noviny daily. It remainspopular even though it has preserved its old-style packaging andlooks like a product dating from the 1960s. Slovaks have beeneating the wafer, with its peanut filling and partial cocoacoating, for 57 years. Horalka was ‘invented’ by Pečivárne Sereď in1953. At that time, when a number of companies were producingbare wafers, the company wanted to innovate. To keep itsproduct accessible, it coated only the ends to improve the taste,while keeping its price low. I.D.C. Holding privatised PečivárneSereď back in 1992.

IndulonaIf you ask people in Slovakia and the Czech Republic what is themost well-known hand cream there the most frequent answerwould probably be Indulona. Since its launch on the market in1964, several generations have used it to care for their hands. Inspite of its primary purpose as a hand cream, legends abound ofthe other uses into which it was pressed during the communistperiod. Only those lacking in imagination applied it only to theirhands or face. People used it as a sunbathing cream, cream forshoes and leather handbags and jackets, as well as for polishingwood or greasing rubber parts in washing machines.Dermatologists recommended it to people suffering from eczemaas it did not contain any preservative agents. Indulona wasdeveloped by the pharmaceutical company SlovakofarmaHlohovec, now part of Zentiva. A group of doctors andpharmacists began working on its composition as early as 1948and it finally entered production in 1964. It is exceptional becauseof its ingredients, the ratio of individual elements and theconditions under which it is produced, which equals those forproduction of medicines and curative ointments.

TatramatDuring the previous regime Tatramat was synonymous withwashing machines. The predecessor of the current producer ofwashing machines in Poprad dates back to the 19th century. In1845 Carl August Scholtz set up a mechanical engineeringworkshop in the nearby village of Matejovce. Over the years itchanged its name as well as its range of products until finally, inthe 1970s, settling on the Tatramat brand and making its mainfocus the manufacture of washing machines. After the fall of thecommunist regime it split into two units: one sticking toproduction of washing machines, now Whirlpool Slovakia; andthe second producing water heaters, which retained theTatramat brand.

Source: Companies, Hospodárske Noviny daily

Compiled by Spectator staff

The nostalgia game is a

new phenomenon

which has been successful

only for a few years.

Sociologist Zuzana Kusá

BY JANA LIPTÁKOVÁSpectator staff

BUSINESS FOCUS

SLOVAKS AND SLOVAK BRAND NAMES INDIA

From garage to globalsuccess

Slovak companies whichare worldwide leaders

From garage toglobal success

DURING the communist regimeSlovakia’s economy was undercentral command, with large-scale producers manufacturingto satisfy not only local demandbut also the needs of other coun-tries within the so-called Sovietbloc. The fall of the Iron Curtainand the subsequent revolution offree-market economics meantthe end for many such giants,but also provided new opportun-ities for Slovaks courageousenough to start their own busi-nesses. Some of them managedto make it – literally from theirgarage to the world market – andtheir products are now soldaround the globe.

Millions of computers areprotected against viruses by aprogram developed by Eset.People follow iPhone navigation-al instructions designed by Sygicor cruise the skies in ultralightDynamic aeroplanes. Lightingproduced by OMS illuminates thegrounds of Tottenham HotspurFootball Club in Great Britain.And wine lovers can look forwardto savouring wine matured inBoswell-Polonyi barrels madefrom Slovak oak.

Eset is the most well-knownexample of a Slovak companythat started as a small new firmand, over the years, has de-veloped into a prominent com-pany with a global reach. MarianTimoracký, a marketing expertand managing partner of UnitedConsultants, sees Eset as unques-tionably the most successfulSlovak trademark of all.

“In Slovakia almost every-body knows their legendaryNOD32 antivirus software, butonly a few people know that half abillion people around the globeknow their trademark and thatmore than 100 million clients usetheir products,” Timoracký toldThe Slovak Spectator.

The development of a univer-sal program for the identificationand treatment of computerthreats, which started in 1987,when its first version was cre-ated, and then underwent signi-ficant changes and improve-ments in the first half of 1990s,was the cornerstone of thecompany’s future success. A fa-vourable review in the Britishmagazine Virus Bulletin in 1998put the program into the spot-light for the world’s experts.

The creation of effective anti-virus software while focusing onkey characteristics – proactivedetection of threats, low systemrequirements and simple control– helped Eset establish itself onthe market, according to MartinBaranovič, public relations man-ager for EMEA at Eset.

“Eset distinguishes itselffrom the competition in partic-ular by its long-term high qual-ity level and by the stability ofits system,” Baranovič told TheSlovak Spectator. “Clients knowthat Eset traditionally providesa high level of protectionagainst computer threats anddoes not burden its productwith useless and needless fea-tures. It does not have periodswhen it is excellent and thenperiods when it is weak.”

Eset was the 11th fastest-growing technology company inthe central European region,which covers 10 countries, in-cluding fast-developing ones inthe Balkan region, according tothe Deloitte Technology Fast 50Central Europe ranking for 2009.Eset has recorded 951-percentgrowth in the past five years andis the fastest growing techno-logy firm in Slovakia, the com-pany wrote in a press release.

Eset was not the only Slovakcompany in the Deloitte rank-ing. In another category, ‘RisingStars’, in which young compan-ies with great potential werenominated, Sygic was ranked insixth place. The company,which produces a unique multi-platform navigation engine,was the sole Slovak representat-ive in that category.

The Sygic story commencedin 2002, when its current CEObegan to focus on GSM, GPRS andGPS software developmenttoolkits for industrial mobiledevices utilised in the logisticsmarket. The company was foun-ded in 2004, while its focus nar-rowed on navigation software.The crucial decision in Sygic'sdevelopment was to abandonthe design of product- and ver-sion-specific navigation applic-ations and instead to design amulti-platform navigation en-gine. The multi-platform ap-proach makes it easy to adaptthe navigation program to virtu-ally any mobile device or in-dashsolution, regardless of the oper-ating platform, screen size ortype of operation, whether key-input or touch-screen.

“Creation of this uniquemulti-platform navigation en-gine gave the company a compet-itive edge over establishedbrands when it entered the mo-bile phone GPS mass market in2006," Anna Hurbanič, a spokes-person for Sygic, told The SlovakSpectator, adding that this ad-vantage allows the company to

get to market ahead of the com-petition with any new operatingsystem that has appeared sinceor which will appear in the fu-ture. “Sygic’s greatest success isdefinitely the fact that it has be-come a globally acknowledgedbrand and one of the leading pro-viders of turn-by-turn voice-guided GPS navigation for mobiledevices in just a very short timeon the market. Another greatsuccess is being the very firstsupplier of turn-by-turn naviga-tion for the iPhone, as well as oneof the very few available for thepopular Google Android OSdevices, and in a few days ourproduct will be the first turn-by-turn navigation launched forNokia Maemo phones.”

According to Hurbanič, alongwith a quality product Sygic’sstrength lies in its customer sup-port and bi-directional commu-nication with users, enabling theconstant improvement of itsproduct. She said Sygic is not rest-ing on its laurels, but is continu-ing to bring innovations and newproducts to its customers.

“The Sygic developmentteam is also working on a whollynew product that we believe willchange the history of mobilenavigation, but we cannot re-veal more at this moment,”Hurbaničadded.

Lighting producer OMS hastaken a less traditional approachto its development. As companydirector general VladimírLevársky told the HospodárskeNoviny daily, OMS was silent fora very long time. It worked ondevelopment and grew into astrong company out of the sightof competitors.

“We consider the fact thatwe have managed to build up acompany on a green field,without any privatisation, sub-sidies or contacts to be ourbiggest success,” Levársky toldThe Slovak Spectator. “Over 15years OMS managed to establishitself within the demandingcompetitive environment oftraditional producers of lightingfixtures to become one of the topEuropeanproducers.“

From the very beginning OMStried to do things in a differentway to its competitors. It was ag-gressive, but in a healthy way,and offered high quality productsfor reasonable prices.

“We managed to be flexibletowards the needs ofcustomers,” said Levársky. “Wemet their requirements quickly

and reliably. Thanks to this wemanaged to establish ourselvesamongst European rivals whohad decades-long tradition [inthe business].”

Over the years, OMS hasmoved from production to thedevelopment and design oflighting.

“Nowadays we have our ownresearch and development teamand designers, and we are able tobring in our own solutions,” saidLevársky, adding that now thecompany is endeavouring to be-come one of the top ten lightingcompaniesin Europe.

This year OMS plans to in-vest a total of €7 million, ofwhich one half will go into itsR&D centre. Almost 40 special-ists in the centre develop newproducts for OMS, focusing onenergy efficiency and usage ofLED technologies.

“Our aim is to advance ourown research and developmentto a new level,” said Levársky.“In the new centre, which willopen in the second half of 2010,we will create unique condi-tions for further development ofresearch and development ca-pacities, which will serve notonly our company, but thewhole segment.”

The path to success taken bythe Iron Art company of Július Po-lonyi was different: his meetingwith Brad Boswell from T.W.Boswell, a company which pro-duces over 51 percent of theworld’s barrique wine barrels,gave it a new twist. The compan-ies created a joint trademark,Boswell-Polonyi. Iron Art sup-plies shooks – the wooden sec-tions from which barrels are made– out of Slovak oak and Boswelluses them to produce barrels inFrance’s Bordeaux region.

“In January 2009, our jointtrademark was officially intro-duced at the world exhibition inSacramento in California, whereit harvested great success,” Po-lonyi told The Slovak Spectator.“Boswell offers barrels producedfrom Slovak oak and designed tomature wines of the highest qual-ity via its trade networks in 20countries around the world.”

Iron Art secures distributionof Boswell-Polonyi barrels inSlovakia and the Czech Republicand some wines from grapesharvested in 2009 are nowmaturing in Boswell-Polonyibarrels in the cellars of promin-ent wine producers in Slovakiaand the Czech Republic.

The above are just a few ex-amples of Slovak companies suc-ceeding. The path that each ofthem took to build a thrivingbusiness was different, but eachof their owners worked hard torealise their dream of a successfulcompany. There is no single for-mula for achieving success.Sometimes the best way is to findan unoccupied niche in the mar-ket, while in others the zest to dothings differently from the com-petition and listen to customerscan create a miracle. None ofthem are resting on their laurels,but are continuing to bring in-novations and new products totheir customers.

7January 18 – 24, 2010BUSINESS FOCUS

Some Slovak firmsare outsmartingthe competitionand winning new

customers

BY JANA LIPTÁKOVÁSpectator staff

A Dynamic aeroplane being built in Prievidza. Photo: ČTK

Some Slovak companies which havesuccessfully established themselves

worldwide

Aerospool – The roots of the Aerospool company date back to1990-91, when a team of Prievidza Air Club pilots started work ona WT3 glider prototype. Using the skills gained they decided tolaunch a company through which they could fulfil their dream ofbuilding aeroplanes. The company later moved into thedevelopment and production of ultralight planes; its compositeWT9 Dynamic aeroplane is its biggest project so far.The company is based at Prievidza Airport, which will host the2010 FAI World Gliding Championship, of which Aerospool is thegeneral partner.www.aerospool.sk

Antik computers & communications – This company has beenoperating on the market since 1989. It first operated under thename AFV-Antik. Ten years ago, as Antik computers & com-munications, it also became also a telecommunications operator.It has designed its own set-top box connecting PCs with TVs,which it distributes in a number of countries around the world.ww.antik.sk

Eset - From its origins as a small company, Eset has evolved intoa global provider of software solutions providing protection andsecurity for millions of computer users worldwide. The mostwell-known Eset product is its antivirus program known by theabbreviation ‘NOD’.The first computer viruses attacked disk boot sectors, which arelocated at the edge of a disk. An antivirus program could in asense be considered a hospital, or ‘nemocnica’ in the Slovaklanguage. The new antivirus program was thus named‘Nemocnica na Okraji Disku’ – or ‘NOD’ – which in Englishmeans ‘Hospital at the Edge of the Disk’.www.eset.sk

Grand Power – Grand Power, which was established in May 2002,develops, designs and manufactures firearms and does specialengineering work. Its main product is the K 100 self-loadingpistol and modifications to it. The K 100’s unique design, qualityand price have earned it the appreciation of sport shooters,armed forces and specialist authorities around the world.www.grandpower.eu

Innovatrics – This company, launched by a student in 2004,focuses on providing fast, accurate, interoperable andsensor-independent fingerprint recognition software forincorporation into final biometric applications. The companynow has clients on every continent except Antarctica, and mostof its clients are in Africa.www.innovatrics.com

Iron Art – In 2004, 10 years after it was launched, Iron Art startedproducing wooden shooks for wine barrels. In 2009 it created ajoint trademark, Boswell–Polonyi, with the world leader inproduction of wine barrels, T.W. Boswell. Under this trademarkbarrique barrels made from European oak harvested fromthe forests of Slovakia are being sold to over 20 countriesworldwide.www.ironart.sk

OMS – This is a privately owned Slovak company, one of thelargest producers of lighting fixtures in central and easternEurope. Founded in 1995, it focuses on development, design andproduction of interior as well as exterior lighting for offices,hotels, restaurants, residential areas, warehouses, hospitals andbanks to exterior lighting used in parking lots, highways, footballstadiums and billboards, as well as for illumination of historicalmonuments. In addition to its vast product line, OMS also has anR&D centre.www.oms.sk

Spinea – This private engineering company was founded in 1994and is active in the research, development, production and sale ofhigh-precision bearing reducers. Spinea’s trademark TwinSpinbearing reducer is the company’s main product. This originalpatented solution represents a new generation of a backlash-freehigh-precision reducer with radial-axial bearings implementedinside a supporting element. These reducers are installed, forexample, in robots serving on the production lines of companiessuch as BMW, Volkswagen and Daimler.www.spinea.sk

Sygic –Sygic develops and sells turn-by-turn voice-guided GPSnavigation for a wide range of mobile devices. It delivers its GPSsoftware worldwide in more than 20 languages, includingChinese, Arabic, Farsi, Malay, and nearly every Europeanlanguage, working together with map providers to support mapsfor all regions. Sygic is compatible and cooperates with leadingproducers of portable navigation devices and mobile phones andits navigation software can be also found on iPhones.Sygic was founded in 2004 with a vision to operate as a strong,technically oriented company in order to bring innovativeproducts to the navigation market.www.sygic.com

Source: company websites, Hospodárske Noviny daily, Žurnál weekly

Compiled by Spectator staff

8 January 18 – 24, 2010 BUSINESS FOCUS

BRAND: Borders limit local brandsContinued from pg 6

Many of the traditional localbrands had to regain their repu-tation and they slowly rebuilttheir paths to consumers duringthe following years.

In many cases they also hadto solve legal disputes overtrademarks and with plagiar-ists as some of these brandnames had started to be usedfor the whole product categoryin the past.

Timoracký believes that en-lightened owners, who have sys-tematically developed theirbrands to a significant extent,are behind the successes of tradi-tional Slovak brands.

“The power of a brand isbased especially on its aware-ness, of which the most import-ant parameter is being at the ‘topof the mind’ as well as the mar-ket share of the brand,”Timoracký said. “But this is notenough. Only a brand which isbased on an attractive productidea with a coherent value struc-ture and a stronger, let’s say, cul-tural dimension can be the best.A powerful brand should havethe ability to respond to unceas-ingly changing consumer beha-viour and have respect andhumbleness toward the custom-er. But probably the most im-portant ingredient of a strongbrand is its credibility, reputa-tion and the respect in which itis held.”

Top Slovak brands

In 2008 the HospodárskeNoviny daily organised a ballotamong experts in marketing,promotion, legal protection ofindustrial property, and designto choose the top Slovak trade-marks. The Zlatý Bažant trade-mark beer won the highest rank-ing of the 15 most-valued trade-marks in the category ofproducts. The trademark ofVinea finished second in the top15 most-valued trademarks inthe products category, followedby Horalka wafers, Kofola – thecola-like soft drink – and Budišmineral water.

“The voting confirmed thatZlatý Bažant is not only themost-valued Slovak beer trade-mark, but also the most-valuedSlovak trademark in general,”Hana Šimková, corporate rela-tions manager of Heineken Slov-ensko, for which Zlatý Bažant isits flagship trademark, told TheSlovak Spectator. “But it is ne-cessary to add that during itsfirst years of existence ZlatýBažant developed into a beerbrand distributed all across thecountry, not only in the regionwhere it was brewed. This alsobecame the basis of its sub-sequent export success.”

Kofola is another trademarksuccess story, a product whichdid not disappear from the mar-ket after the Velvet Revolution.

“The brand of Kofola joinedwith our company for the firsttime in 2000,” Branislav Burák,the marketing director of the Ko-fola company, based in RajeckáLesná, told The Slovak Spectator.“That year we started producingKofola as a licensed partner ofthe original owner of the trade-mark and according to the recipeof Kofola Original from the Ivax

company, from which we alsobought the trademark Kofolatwo years later. This acquisitionwas one of the milestones in thewhole history of our company,which then changed its namefrom Santa Nápoje to Kofola a.s.in 2002.”

Vinea, a grape-based softdrink, became part of the Kofolacompany’s portfolio of beveragessome years later. The Kofolacompany became the exclusiveowner of the trademark and therecipe for Vinea on January 31,2008, said Burák.

“Kofola and Vinea are leadersin their categories in the Slovakmarket – Kofola among the cola-like soft drinks and Vinea amonggrape-based soft drinks and, ingeneral, among all kinds of fruit-based soft drinks,” said Burák,adding that he thinks bothbrands have potential for fur-ther growth.

Chances abroad

Burák believes that both Ko-fola and Vinea can find a nichebeyond the borders of Slovakiaand the Czech Republic.

“Vinea, by its taste andaroma is a product that is at-tractive for consumers beyondthe Slovak borders,” he said.“But the potential of a productto establish itself in a foreignmarket is not only about thecomposition of the product it-self, but also, as is the exampleof Vinea, about its character-istic packaging.”

On the other hand, Kofola,because of its specific taste, hasfaced bigger difficulties andhigher costs in finding its wayto foreign customers – aspeople in neighbouring coun-tries are used to a different,more classical cola-like taste,according to Burák.

“But now it is no exceptionthat foreign consumers have alsostarted to like Kofola because ofits distinctive taste,” said Burák.

Zlatý Bažant is the most-ex-ported Slovak beer with one mil-lion hectolitres being sentabroad each year, according toŠimková, who sees its tradition,taste and world-quality behindits success. The beer is exportedto 17 countries, with the US andCanada being leading importers.Zlatý Bažant is the company’sstrategic brand within centraland eastern Europe and its li-censed production has beenlaunched in the Czech Republic,Hungary and Russia.

But Timoracký, in general,does not see great chances forlocal brands of soft drinks andsweets to get established else-where.

“There are enough similarsoft drinks and sweet snacks inneighbouring countries andthose local consumers have builtup relations with their own softdrinks and sweets,” he said.“Moreover, the image of Slovakiaas a whole also has an impact onthe success or the failure of aSlovak brand, ‘what being Slov-ak’ means to people in foreigncountries, if anything at all. Weshould be frank: consumersaround the world have only su-perficial visions about othercountries and thus also aboutSlovakia, based often on myths,presuppositions or anecdotes.”

Kofola - a cola-based soft drink - has been on the Slovak market sincethe early 1960s. Photo: Courtesy of Kofola company

IPO: Innovationrequired

Continued from pg 6

“It is also necessary tohope that more original solu-tions deserving legal protec-tion might be developed inSlovakia,” said Šípoš. “So far,we have instead imported andrealised good ideas fromabroad. The area of science,research and developmenthas been underfed in Slovakiafor a long time. In earlyDecember 2009 the number ofvalid patents in Slovakia ex-ceeded the magic limit of10,000; alas, Slovak subjectsaccount for only 3.5 percent ofthese, or 353 patents. Thisshould be no small matter forall those who decide on thefuture of Slovakia, its trans-ition to a knowledge-basedsociety and an economy basedon new technologies withhigher added value.”

The IPO has registered over50,000 names as trademarks, ofwhich about one half belong toSlovak owners. The oldesttrademark still valid in Slov-akia is Acetopyrin, which wasinscribed in the official registeron July 26, 1900. Its owner isZentiva, a pharmaceuticalcompany. The Harmanec 1829trademark registered onDecember 17, 1910, is thesecond oldest valid trademarkin Slovakia, followed by Pinosolfrom August 5, 1913, also heldby Zentiva.

In Slovakia trademarkscreate the most numerousgroup with Slovakia’s Industri-al Property Office.

“This is logical because thenumber of entrepreneurs inthe market economy has beenincreasing and they want toprotect their products andservices,” said Šípoš. “For thelast few years, IPO has been re-ceiving about 3,000 applica-tions from local subjects andabout 1,000 applications fromforeign subjects annually. In2009, certainly due in part to

the influence of the global eco-nomic downturn, we have re-gistered a 23-percent decline intrademark applications. In thedesign category applicationsfell by 20 percent.”

The number of patent ap-plications increased by almost 7percent in 2009, to 176, whilethe number of applications forutility models remained at theprevious year’s level in Slov-akia, the SITA newswire wrote.

Darina Kyliánová, the dir-ector of IPO, believes that thecrisis is an opportunity to ac-tivate the creative potential ofcompanies and their bestbrains, SITA wrote. The crisishas changed the establishedrules and given new projects achance. Only those who innov-ate, who try to come to themarket with something new,economical, and friendly notonly to the pockets of custom-ers but also to the environ-ment, and who also get theirinnovative solution legally pro-tected can succeed in thehighly competitive market-place, according to Kyliánová.

Slovakia’s entry into the EUin May 2004 did not make anybig change in the number oftrademark applications. Butapplications for patents re-gistered a significant change.

“Slovakia had alreadyjoined the European PatentConvention on July 1, 2002,which meant that theEuropean doors to Slovakia’sIndustrial Property Officeopened 22 months earlier; andforeign applicants still preferthe opportunity to protect theirinventions through a Europeanpatent granted by the EuropeanPatent Office in Munich,” saidŠípoš. “On the other hand, thenumber of European patentswith a designation for Slovakiahas been increasing in the re-gisters of our office. Foreignapplicants are interested inprotecting their inventions inSlovakia.”

SP90185/1

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9January 18 – 24, 2010BUSINESS / NEWS

SDKÚ: 'We gave a serious offer to SaS'Continued from pg 2

“Dzurinda as a leader doesn’t come intoconsideration for those of our voters whovote for us in protest against him,” Sulík ex-plained on his blog. “The result would be thata coalition of the SDKÚ and SaS withDzurinda as the leader would get about thesame number of votes as the SDKÚ alone ifSaS did not exist.”

The SDKÚ, in turn, called that conditionunacceptable and labelled the SaS responseas being not serious.

“We gave a serious offer to SaS, but wedon’t consider their answer to be a seriousone,” SDKÚ deputy chairman Ivan Miklošsaid, as quoted by the SITA newswire.

“Calling our answer not serious is a signof desperation and I have to say I expectedmore from experienced politicians,” Sulíkwrote in reaction. He also commented thatthere are several people within the SDKÚ hecould imagine as a leader of the potential co-alition, specifically naming former opposi-tion presidential candidate Iveta Radičová.

Radičová said she cannot imagine herselfas the leader of such a coalition. The TA3private TV news channel reported that she iseven considering withdrawing from political

life, depending on how her party accepts theelection programme she is currently prepar-ing in the social area.

“The reaction of SaS shows that the partyis programme-wise relatively close to SDKÚ,but politically not very experienced,”Mesežnikov said. “Even if the reservationsabout the leader of another party are legit-imate and are understandable, solving themin public was not very good tactics on thepart of SaS if they were serious about cooper-ation with SDKÚ.”

Mesežnikov admits, however, that itmight not have been any lack of political ex-perience on the part of SaS but rather a polit-ical gambit with the aim of winning oversome SDKÚ voters.

Within a few days of the end of discus-sions between SaS and the SDKÚ, SaS ap-proached another newcomer on the Slovakpolitical scene, the Most-Híd party foundedby Bela Bugár, who left the Hungarian Coali-tion Party (SMK) last year. Bugár announcedon January 11 that his party will hold talkswith SaS about three possible forms of pre-election cooperation, including the creationof an election coalition. Most-Híd has ap-pointed a negotiating team for this purpose,the TASR newswire reported.

Mesežnikov believes that cooperationbetween SaS and Most-Híd might be success-ful for the parliamentary elections, charac-terising both parties as in the same “weightcategory” in regard to voters’ support andnoting that they are both relatively new onthe political scene.

“I believe voters would accept this union,but still, the voter base of the two parties israther different and the differences on issuesare bigger than those between, for instance,SDKÚ and SaS,” Mesežnikov said. He addedthat the two parties – which surveys showeach have about 5-percent voter support –might be able to surpass the 7-percentthreshold required for an formal election co-alition to get seats in parliament.

“And that would be an acceptable resultoverall, because if neither party made it tothe parliament it would be a loss [for thecentre-right of the political spectrum],”Mesežnikov said.

TASR quoted Bugár as saying that he con-sidered the creation of a formal election co-alition, which would need 7 percent of thevotes to enter the parliament, risky but thathe would rather go for new joint party whichwould require only 5 percent of the votes tomake it into parliament.

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Junior controllerFaurecia Slovakia s.r.o. (Faurecia Slovakia s.r.o.), Hlohovec

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Via Bona nominations openCOMPANIES with a distinct approach to cor-porate social responsibility (CSR) can enterthe running to win a Via Bona 2010 award.These will be the tenth such awards, whichare presented by the Pontis Foundation.

The aim of the awards is to publicly re-cognise companies and entrepreneurs whosupport corporate social responsibility andcorporate philanthropy in Slovakia. Via Bona2010 will be presented in 11 categories. Be-sides the two main awards – traditionallygiven separately to large corporations and tosmall and medium-sized enterprises respect-ively, there are separate categories that eval-uate individual aspects of CSR and corporatephilanthropy.

In the corporate social responsibility areathere are four categories: the Green Awardfor an environment-related project, the Eth-ics Award for transparency and the fightagainst corruption, the Award for Respons-ible Approach to Employees and the Awardfor Socially Responsible Market Operations.

The corporate philanthropy area featuresthree awards: the Award for Long-Term Pos-itive Corporate Impact on society and thesurrounding community, the Award forCourage to Support an Innovative Projectimplemented in a little-known area or in anunconventional form, and the Award for Em-ployee Engagement in volunteer activities.

Apart from that, there are two specialawards: the Honourable Mention for MediaContribution in furthering CSR and corpor-ate philanthropy in Slovakia, and the Awardfor Innovative Solutions to Social Inclusion,a new award established for the 10th editionof Via Bona.

“This award will be presented in coopera-tion with the Social Development Fund onthe occasion of the European Year for Com-bating Poverty and Social Exclusion 2010,”Vladimír Vladár, a PR manager at the PontisFoundation, told The Slovak Spectator.

According to Vladár, the Via Bona awardshave undergone significant changes duringthe ten years of their existence.

“A comprehensive approach to respons-ible entrepreneurship as a concept in all itsaspects has come to the forefront,” Vladársaid. “Since 2008, Via Bona is not only aboutcorporate philanthropy but also about re-sponsible entrepreneurship: ethics, envir-onmental awareness, approach to employeesor responsible market operations.”

Nominations for any of the categories, adetailed description of which can be found at

www.viabona.sk (in Slovak and English), canbe submitted until February 8, 2010, via anon-line application form. For the two mainawards companies have to apply on theirown behalf, but in the other categories nom-inations are accepted from anyone whowants to draw attention to specific projectsin the respective areas.

Evaluation of the nominations will beperformed by a commission composed ofrepresentatives of the business world, publicadministration, media, the non-govern-mental sector and independent institutions.The winners will then be announced at a galanight on March 30, 2010, by the PontisFoundation.

According to Vladár, donations fromcompanies to charities have not been greatlyaffected by the crisis so far, because there areseveral ways for businesses to donate, in-cluding diversion of 2 percent of their in-come tax or by donating a specific share ofcorporate income. So in 2009 companiesmainly operated according to their financialresources from the 2008 taxation period.

“For non-profit organisations which de-pend on this source of finance the crisis willtherefore show only in 2010,” Vladár ex-plained, adding that Pontis has, however,noted a trend of increased non-financial helpfrom businesses: such as donating their usedequipment or donating the working time oftheir employees to NGOs.

“Based on this experience we expect in-terest in non-financial support from com-panies to grow,” he said.

By Michaela Stanková

A Via Bona Award. Photo: Courtesy of Pontis

10 January 18 – 24, 2010 CULTURE

Western SLOVAKIA

Bratislaval CLASSICAL MUSIC: Concertat the Austrian Cultural Forum –Florian Kitt from Graz playingcello and Rita Medjimorec fromVienna on piano, two outstand-ing Austrian musicians, per-form works by Robert Schu-mann, Franz Koglmann,Frédéric Chopin, Franz Liszt andRichard Strauss.

Starts: January 22, 18:00.Admission: free. Rakúskekultúrne fórum, Zelená 7. Tel:02/5464- 1337, www.rakusko.eu/program/program.aspx.

Bratislaval THEATRE: Haiku – Elementsof dance, motion, music, andJapanese traditional poemsform an ephemeral image of atheatre experiment, per-formed by homeless and han-dicapped people.

Starts: January 21, 19:00.Admission: €3.32 and € 2.66.Štúdio 12, Divadelný ústav, Jak-ubovo nám. 12. Tel: 02/2048-7102,7103, www.theatre.sk.

Bratislaval CLASSICAL MUSIC: Sólo premoju lásku, Momentum music-um – This cycle of chamber mu-sic concerts offers a selection ofromantic songs sung by HenrietaVrábelová and MáriaJendruchová, accompanied byMilada Synková on piano andcalled Solo for My Love.

Starts: January 24, 16:00.Admission: €3 and €2. CCCentrum, Jiráskova 3. Tel:02/6382-4390, www.kzp.sk.

Bratislava:l LIVE MUSIC: Hudba z Marsuand guest – With its 13 years ofperforming original music atvenues such as the Sunrock Fest-ival in Belgium and Slovakia’sPohoda Festival, the Hudba zMarsu band has won thousandsof fans.

Starts: January 21, 20:00.Admission: €3 in advance, €5 onconcert day. DK Zrkadlový HájHouse of Culture, Rovniankova 3.Tel: 02/6383-6776, www.kzp.sk.

Trenčínl DOG SHOW: InternationalDog Show – The Slovak CynologyUnion has organised an interna-

tional show, including competi-tions attractive for both childrenand adults: brace competition,junior handling, and the GrandPrix Slovak (national) Breeds onJanuary 23.

Open: January 23-24,9:00-16:00. Admission: €1 - €2,parking €4 a day. EXPO Center,Pod Sokolice 43. Tel:02/5249-2298, www.skj.sk orwww.expocenter.sk.

Nitral EXHIBITION: From Home asFar as Abroad/Z domova až docudziny – Exhibition of graphicworks by renowned Czech artistAdolf Born, who is also famousamong his Slovak admirers.

Open: until January 31, dailyfrom 9:00 till 17:30. Admission:free. Malá galéria Akcent, buildingof the Town Spa (Mestský kúpeľ),Kúpeľná 4. Tel: 037/6517-604,0905/318-260, 0903/409-123,www.kamdomesta.sk.

Central SLOVAKIA

Banská Bystrical CLASSICAL MUSIC: NewYear’s Concert – The University

Choir of the Teaching Facultyof the MBU Mladosť, celebrat-ing its 40th year, gives a con-cert conducted by ProfessorsMilan Pazúrik and Alfonz Po-liak at the Church of St. Mi-chael Archangel.

Starts: January 20, 17:30. Ad-mission: free. Kostol sv. MichalaArchanjela, Internátna 14. tel:048/4155-085, www.kisbb.sk.

Donovaly:l SPORTS: Rossignol DemoTour – This winter event at thepopular ski resort of Donovalywill be full of skis, snowboards,drinks, computers, cars, face-painting, tombola, and more.

Starts: January 22-24. Admis-sion: free. For more info, see:www.parksnow.sk/donovaly.

Eastern SLOVAKIA

Košicel EXHIBITION: Kedi jasna hv-izda z ňeba vichodzila… – The20th year of the Festival of SacralArt brings Bethlehems anditems used for Christmas car-olling from the ethnographiccollection of the Eastern-SlovakMuseum with an accent onSlovak folklore traditions.

Open: until January 21, Tue-Sat 9:00-17:00; Sun 9:00-13:00.Admission: €1.50. Galéria Bašta,Hrnčiarska 7. Tel: 055/6222-856,www.vsmuzeum.sk.

Prešovl CLASSICAL MUSIC: Hudbapod hviezdnou oblohou – TheObservatory and Planetariumhas organised a series of eventsunder the indoor sky, e.g. Mu-sic under the Starry Sky. TheBaroque Four Seasons by Viv-aldi will be performed in thisunique atmosphere.

Starts: January 21, 18.00.Admission: €2. Hvezdáreň aplanetárium, Dilongova 17.Tel: 051/7722-065, 051/7733-218,www.astropresov.sk.

By Zuzana Vilikovská

Snowless January

HALF of the coldest month of the year is over, andit seems that there is more snow in Prague, forinstance, than at Štrbské Pleso. And nothingmuch is expected to change. The cold air will stayin Slovakia but no major snowfalls are expected.So, it seems, the skiing will continue, but just onmachine-made snow. During the week, cloudyweather with mild snowfall is expected; while atthe weekend the weather should brighten up.

The lack of natural snow is a pity for this timeof year. Temperatures will continue to linger be-low zero, even during the day. In the early morn-ings they could even fall as low as minus 10 de-grees. An interesting addition to the list of activ-ities available in the mountains should be theSnow Bike Downhill in the vicinity of Chopok-Juh (Chopok-South). This involves freestyle bike-riding, jumps, and downhill riding on snow,activities which are relatively new to Slovakia.

In Vrátna dolina, the Cena Malej Fatry racewill take place on January 19 and 20: this includesskiing, super G, and slalom events. Also this weekholidays begin in Poland, so the empty slopes ofrecent days are not likely to last. However, due tothe lack of snow, the most attractive ski slopes,on the top sections of Chopok and in Lomnickésedlo, will probably not be used.

By Roman Millan, www.lanovky.sk

The accidental spa

THE KOVÁČOVÁ spa in centralSlovakia is relatively young. Thethermal mineral springs werediscovered here by acci-dent during geologicalexploration at the end ofthe 19th century.Between 1898 and 1899,engineers searching forcoal reserves in the re-gion sunk a bore that struck asource of thermal water at adepth of 405 metres. The waterrose to the surface at the bore-

hole and formed a small lake.Later, the spring was

bought by several businessmen.

After they had regulated thewater supply, they established asmall spa on the site. Unfortu-nately, no big investor was

found for Kováčová, and thebusinessmen who owned thespa were able to build just one

pool, a smallhotel and a res-taurant.

As a result,the Kováčová sparemained a re-gional resort.

This postcard from 1932 depictsthe hotel restaurant “Príhoda”.

By Branislav Chovan

Ski lifts and cableways offer views of the beautifulcountryside. Photo: Roman Millan

Galéria NOVA in Bratislava has organised an exhibition, a specialisedproject of painter Ján Triaška, who ponders the leitmotif of Christmas,consumption and the art of installation. It combines photographswith the theme of Christmas gifts within glass light boxes. This pictureshows one part of his installation, called Christmas Present 2008,which can be viewed at the gallery on Baštová 2 until January 31, 2010.The gallery is open Tuesday through Sunday from 13:00 to 18:00 andadmission is free. For more information, see 02/5443-3039, orwww.galeria-nova.sk. Photo: Courtesy of Galéria NOVA

For a third time Košice’s Steel Arena is hosting the popular Sony Eric-sson Freestyle Motocross – but this year several surprises await visit-ors. Top racers will participate, including Jose Miralles, the vice cham-pion for 2009, Jack Rove from the US, Australian Steve Mini, and oth-ers. Libor Podmol will meet two-time world champion Remi Bizouardin a surprise one-on-one duel. Another lure will be an attempted backflip on a snow-scooter by Joisten Stenberg from Norway. The showwill be held on January 23 at 20:00 with an advance admission fee of€21.90 until January 22. Tickets are available at www.ticketportal.sk.For more info, see www.fmx.sk. Photo: Courtesy of FMX

HISTORY TALKS

EVENTS COUNTRYWIDE

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.

N A M E D A Y J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 0

Monday

Bohdana

January 18

Tuesday

DrahomíraMário, Sára

January 19

Wednesday

DaliborSebastián

January 20

Thursday

Vincent

January 21

Friday

Zora

January 22

Saturday

Milo‰

January 23

Sunday

Timotej

January 24

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)

SKI WINDOW

Ski conditions around Slovakia (as of January 13)

CENTRE SNOW CONDITIONS SKI PASS PRICE IN € LIFTS IN OPERATION

Donovaly 30 cm very good €22 5/15Jasná – Sever 70 cm very good €29 11/24Chopok – Juh 80 cm very good €19 3/6Martinské hole 60 cm very good €22 1/6Štrbské Pleso 80 cm very good €22 5/6Lomnické sedlo 50 cm unsuitable €27 0/1Tatranská Lomnica 40 cm very good €28 9/14Zverovka 60 cm very good €20 4/4Skipark Ružomberok 35 cm very good €22 4/8Vrátna 60 cm very good €22 3/15Veľká Rača 45 cm very good €22 4/7

Generation A

IN THE early 1990s, the Cana-dian novelist Douglas Couplandwas among the first artistic fig-ures to catch the whiff of teenspirit that would come to fuelthe decade’s disaffected. His lit-erary debut, Generation X, wassub-titled "Tales for an Acceler-ated Culture" and the book was abible for the children of the babyboomers, vast swathes of innov-ative and intelligent youth, whowere wasting their talents indead end “McJobs” and strug-gling to make sense of a worldthat favoured blandness over in-vention. Coupland’s novel pop-ularised the Generation Xmoniker and promoted himovernight to the role of spokes-man for the slouching classes.

Each of Coupland’s sub-sequent 10 novels could be re-garded in some ways as a se-quel. As marketeers and advert-isers strengthened their grip onthe modern world, Coupland’scharacters continued to regarddropping out as a crucial tacticto tolerate their surroundings.Microserfs, Girlfriend in aComa, Miss Wyoming, All Fam-ilies are Psychotic and others alldiscussed the theme of isolationin a rapidly homogenisingworld. What marked them all asCoupland creations, however,was an enduring stream of op-timism that seemed to flowalongside the cynicism. Hischaracters sneered, but did so inthe hope that it would keepthem alive.

For obvious reasons of no-menclature, Coupland’s latestoffering, Generation A, will beconsidered a more formal followup to his early masterpiece. Ittakes its title from KurtVonnegut’s dismissive challengeto the Generation Xphenomenon—“The media do usall such tremendous favourswhen they call you GenerationX, right? I hereby declare youGeneration A, as much at the be-ginning of a series of astonish-ing triumphs and failures asAdam and Eve were so long ago.”And Coupland seems happy tohave the boundaries blurredbetween the beginning and theend of an era.

Generation A is set in anunspecified near future, whollyrecognisable despite two majordevelopments. First, environ-mentalists’ gloomy predictions

have been realised and bees arenow thought extinct. At thesame time, the world’s popula-tion has grown silently ad-dicted to a drug named Solon,which does not only comfortagainst loneliness, it actuallymakes such a state attractive.Users seek only their owncompany and “society” isrendered less than a sum of itsparts. Coupland’s casual nihil-ists have therefore more evid-ence than ever to consider theiroutlooks prescient.

The world is roused from itscommunal slumber when fiveyoung people, one American,one Canadian, one French andone each from Sri Lanka andNew Zealand, are stung bybees. With Earth itself resem-bling a vast celebrity obsessedreality-show, the five ironicallydub themselves “Wonka

children” and are plasteredacross billions of television andcomputer screens. They arethen whisked away for a seriesof sinister experiments, appar-ently to determine why theywere selected for the elusivestingers’ special treatment.

The five relate their tales ina round-robin narrative and aswith much of Coupland, thereare many passages thatsparkle, but also plenty thatseem forced. Coupland has al-ways seemed addicted to ob-servation but is sometimesguilty of employing his fiction-al entities merely as chirrupingmouthpieces for his mass ofpreoccupations.

The most successful mo-ments come when a particularvision gels with its orator, suchas when the exhibitionist Zackoffers: “I mean, everyone Iknow – hell, the whole country– is baked on drugs, clueless asdirt and morbidly obese.” Butsuch snarky generalisations areless convincing from the re-cently-lapsed Christian Diana,or Harj, who begins the novel asa humble call centre operative.

The high points in anyCoupland yarn still outnumberthe low and Generation A is re-warding in its belief that the artof storytelling holds the secretto the planet’s prosperity. “Howcan we be alive and not wonderabout the stories we use to knittogether this place we call theworld?” says one character asthe five become embroiled in anexchange of short stories.

The downside is thatCoupland’s canon is itself homo-genising. His themes and atti-tudes were once utterly modernand audacious, but every repeti-tion dulls the thrill. Generation Ais thus just another good Coup-land novel that is not, however,as breathtaking as his first.

BY HOWARD SWAINSSpecial to the Spectator

A review ofDouglas Coupland's

latest novel

Books in Englishnow available

The Geopolitics of Emotion.Dominique Moisi.Doubleday, 2009.

The first book to expose andinvestigate the far-reachingemotional impact of globalisa-tion says its publisher. In TheGeopolitics ofEmotionDominiqueMoisi, aleading au-thority oninterna-tion-al affairs, demonstrates thatour post-September 11 worldhas become divided by morethan cultural fault linesbetween nations and civilisa-tions. Moisi chronicles how

today’s geopolitics is character-ised by a “clash of emotions”,and how cultures of fear andhumiliation as well as hope arereshaping the world.

Esther’s Inheritance. SándorMárai. Picador, 2009.

This book by Sándor Márai,a Hungarian author who wasborn in 1900 in Košice, was ori-ginally published in Hungarianin 1939. In it, the author of thefamous Embers tells the storyof Esther. Twenty years afterleaving her, the great love ofEsther’s life sends a telegram.Tomorrow, he tells her, he iscoming back.

“This novella is not an ex-ercise in nostalgia; the familysecrets it uncovers are toopainful… Márai understandsthat ghosts have a way of reviv-ifying themselves,” the Inde-pendent wrote in its review ofthe book.

The Path to the Spiders'Nests. Italo Calvino. PenguinClassic, 2009.

This novel by the renownedItalian writer Italo Calvino, theauthor of the novel Invisible

Cities, was first published in1947 as his first novel. It tells astory of Pin, a bawdy, adoles-cent cobbler's assistant, botharrogant and insecure who -while the Second World Warrages - sings songs and tellsjokes to endear himself to the

grown-upsof his town -particularlyjokes abouthis sister,who they allknow as thetown's

'mattress'. Among those his sis-ter sleeps with is a Germansailor, and Pin dares to steal hispistol, hiding it among thespiders' nests in an act of rebel-lion that entangles him in theadults' war.

Oxford Practice Grammar.George Yule. Oxford Uni-versity Press, 2006.

This book for advanced stu-dents is a part of the OxfordPractice Grammar series ofthree books, intended for use ineither a classroom or as addi-tional study material for stu-dents’ individual preparation.The book is divided into units,each of which covers an im-portant grammar topic and in-cludes a set of practice exer-cises. Tests at the end of eachunit or section of units give theopportunity for more practiceand assessment of learningoutcomes.

Oxford Word Skills. RuthGairns and Stuart Redman.Oxford University Press,2009.

This vocabulary practicebook is designed for advancedlearners. The book contains 80units of vocabulary presenta-tion and practice. New vocabu-lary is presented in manage-able quantities for learners,with practice exercises follow-ing immediately, usually onthe same page. The vocabularyincludes a wide range of top-ics, concepts, different fieldsof academic English and itputs a focus on different stylesof English.

The Name of This Book isSecret. Pseudonymous Bosch.Usborne, 2007.

The cover of this book forchildren doesn’t reveal muchabout it, except for the inform-ation that it includes two ex-traordinary adventures, a miss-ing magician’s diary, a sym-phony of smells and a deadlysecret. “Open the book if youmust. But please, tell no one,”the notes conclude. This mys-terious fantasy story, whichstarts with the warning “Donot read beyond this page”, hasthe label of a New York Timesbest-seller and was shortlistedfor the Bedfordshire Children’sBook of the Year 2009 award.

This column is a selection by TheSlovak Spectator of English-lan-guage books recently released inSlovakia; it does not represent anendorsement of any of the books se-lected. The column is prepared incooperation with the Oxford Book-shop, Laurinská 9, Bratislava.

CULTURE 11January 18 – 24, 2010

New Slovak Architecture

SLOVAKIA has experienced a nonpareil con-struction boom during recent years. Skylines ofSlovak cities and towns, and the general ap-pearance of the countryside as well, havechanged – with new skyscraper buildings erec-ted, new residential areas constructed and oldfacilities torn down. Henrieta Moravčíková, thehead of the Department of Architecture at theInstitute of Construction and Architecture ofthe Slovak Academy of Sciences, has selected101 buildings constructed or renovatedbetween 1999 and 2009 to illustrate currenttrends and developments in Slovak architec-ture. Slovart publishing house published theSlovak-English book, titled New Slovak Archi-tecture, at the end of 2009.

“No one has grasped Slovak architecture,spanning the period from the beginning ofmodernism to the present, better than HenrietaMoravčíková,” said Dietmar Steiner, architec-ture critic and director of ArchitekturzentrumVienna, about the most recent book written bythis enthusiastic devotee of Slovak architec-ture. “Her excellent choices and excellent de-scriptions of the buildings of the past decadeimpressively reveal the quality of Slovak archi-tecture, comparable with that of any Europeancountry. The book has already become a histor-ical document covering the top performances ofthe largest building boom in the history of thiscountry in the heart of Europe.”

The book’s section describing selectedbuildings is preceded with a historical andtheoretical introduction elucidating the spe-cific situation of Slovak architecture over thistime period.

“Slovakia was among the European coun-tries with the highest growth in building con-struction over the past decade,” Moravčíkováwrites, adding that in addition to bigger in-vestments the number of architects, archi-tectural studios, architectural awards,magazines, and so forth increased as well. Butthis has not fully resulted in a desired higher

quality of completed projects or more discus-sion about the role of architecture.

“As a result, building construction,whose development was long-awaited, hasparadoxically yielded hundreds of new,banal buildings, tens of destroyed heritagesites, and the privatisation of a number ofpublic spaces,” writes Moravčíková. She em-phasised that a good overall cultural setting,rather than just a strong economy, is the pre-requisite for interesting and valuable archi-tecture to be created.

In the book, Moravčíková arranges thearchitectural works into six groupings, ac-cording to their purpose, environment andorigin. Living in the City focuses on residen-tial housing in cities and towns and In theVillage introduces residential projects in vil-lages. In Nature describes projects like week-end houses, recreational cottages and touristamenities. The Culture, Education and Reli-gion chapter presents projects of a galleryand a museum as well as schools, sportscentres and religious centres.

Production and Services focuses onbuildings and premises used as offices andproduction halls and the final section, calledReconstruction and Renovation, brings themost innovative projects in reconstructionand renovation of historical buildings, in-cluding renovation of industrial premises aswell as rebuilding of historical edifices toserve different purposes than in the past.Each project presented in the book is ac-companied by commentary, architecturaldrawings and technical data, as well ashigh-quality photos.

BY JANA LIPTÁKOVÁSpectator staff

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SP90117/1