News digest: General prosecutor criticises defence agreement, culture calls for reopening

Critics of the defence agreement talk about the loss of sovereignty, the ministry rejects it. Rules for entering Cyprus and the UK to change. Tomorrow is a national holiday.

(Source: SME.sk / Hej,ty)

Good evening. Read the Wednesday, January 5, 2022, edition of Today in Slovakia to catch up on the main news of the day in less than five minutes. Please note that tomorrow is a national holiday, so there will not be a news digest. The next edition of Today in Slovakia will be published on Friday, January 7. We wish you a pleasant read.

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General prosecutor objects to the defence agreement

The General Prosecutor’s Office, led by Maroš Žilinka, submitted 35 fundamental objections to the draft defence agreement between the US and Slovakia, which has recently been submitted for an interdepartmental review.

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If signed, the agreement would allow the United States Air Force to use Slovakia’s military airports Malacky-Kuchyňa and Sliač, and potentially other facilities. Slovakia is supposed to offer these sites without a request of rental payment, valid for 10 years. The agreement would remain valid following this period and it would also be possible to cancel it with a one-year notice period.

At the same time, the agreement should permit the use of funds in favour of the Slovak armed forces. Any infrastructure built using US finance will be Slovakia’s property. The American armed forces can use the infrastructure as long as necessary.

Yet, the General Prosecutor’s Office claimed that if the agreement with the US is concluded in the current wording, Slovakia will surrender the guarantee of several constitutional rights. The government or the president should use their constitutional rights and subject the draft bilateral agreement to a constitutional review, it added.

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Apart from the General Prosecutor’s Office, the agreement has been criticised by the Confederation of the Trade Unions and the opposition parties Smer and Hlas, which both said that the agreement might violate Slovakia’s sovereignty.

The Defence Ministry said it will deal with all objections it received during the interdepartmental review process.

As for the general prosecutor and his office, the ministry responded that the objections Žilinka presented sound like his personal political opinions and lack the professional legal character corresponding to the remit of the General Prosecutor’s Office.

“We still support the proposed text of the agreement that was being prepared by experts from several ministries for four years,” said Kovaľ Kakaščíková, as quoted by the SITA newswire.

She added it is a standard agreement that the USA has signed with 23 out of 29 NATO members, including Hungary and Poland.

The cabinet is set to discuss the draft agreement next week.


Calls for reopening culture

While hotels and other accommodation facilities reopened during Christmas, and gastronomic facilities followed suit in early January, cultural ones remain closed.

The current situation has prompted the representatives of the cultural sector as well as politicians to call for the reopening of theatres, cinemas and concert halls.

The representatives of the junior coalition parties Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) and Za Ľudí want these premises to open in the OP regime, i.e. for the fully vaccinated and people who have recovered from Covid in the past 180 days, adding they should follow the Covid traffic lights system.

Slovakia’s cultural representatives have joined the call and question why they need to be closed when other premises and services that may pose a higher risk of infection can be open. They even launched an online petition, which has been signed by about 3,000 people as of January 4.

Culture Minister Natália Milanová says the new traffic lights system for culture is ready and conditions for mass events for the vaccinated are being improved, according to the TASR newswire.


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More coronavirus and vaccination developments

  • 3,900 people were newly diagnosed as Covid positive out of 13,498 PCR tests performed on January 4 (which represents a positive test rate of 30.61 percent). The number of people in hospitals is 2,230, while 36 more deaths were reported on Tuesday. The vaccination rate is at 49.95 percent; 2,747,338 people have received the first dose of the vaccine. More stats on Covid-19 in Slovakia here.
  • Four districts in Slovakia report the lowest full vaccination rate (two doses or one in the case of a single dose vaccine) against Covid, three of them being in Banská Bystrica Region. The lowest share of fully vaccinated people is in the district of Gelnica (35 percent), followed by the districts of Poltár, Rimavská Sobota and Revúca (36 percent each).
  • About 71 percent of teachers have been vaccinated against Covid, a majority of which are from the Dunajská Streda district (81 percent). On the other hand, the lowest vaccination rate of teachers is in the Kysucké Nové Mesto district (55 percent), as stems from the data of the Education Ministry.
  • More than 84 percent of people in Slovakia adhered to the anti-pandemic measures in November and December 2021, while more than 42 percent have refused a personal meeting or visit due to the lockdown once or more times. This stems from the regular survey “How are you, Slovakia?” carried out by MNFORCE and Seesame agencies and the Slovak Academy of Sciences.

Travel information

Cyprus has changed entry conditions for foreigners travelling to its territory. Between January 4 and January 15, foreign nationals will be required to register 48 hours before their planned entry and have a negative PCR test result no older than 48 hours. They have to pay for another PCR test after arriving at the airport in Larnaka or Paphos.

British PM Boris Johnson has said that from 4:00 on Friday, January 7, pre-departure tests will no longer be required for people arriving in the country. The requirement to self-isolate upon arrival until receiving a negative PCR test will also be lifted. Instead, a negative lateral flow test will be acceptable, he said, as reported by the Guardian.


Picture of the day

Bibiana (International House of Arts for Children) opened its doors and all exhibitions on January 4 to all visitors in the OP regime (i.e. fully vaccinated and recently recovered).


Feature story for today

Roman Hulín, who used to play in punk rock bands and owned a tattoo studio, is now driving bus number 163 between the airport and the city centre, which is used mostly by homeless people. He was personally involved in the establishment of this bus line and volunteered to drive it. The bus stops near the largest homeless shelter in the capital, where dozens of homeless people spend the night during the winter. The representatives of non-governmental organisations say that the city authorities have not dealt with the problem of homelessness properly.

To the city in the morning, back in the evening. A punker drives homeless people by bus Read more 

In other news

  • Most shops in Slovakia will be closed tomorrow as January 6 is a national holiday (Epiphany). Shops at the airports and stations, souvenir shops, wholesale shops and shops where goods are not sold by employees can be open, along with services.
  • The Interior Ministry will purchase car licence plates for cheaper – it will pay €3.95 per plate instead of €7.17. The ministry has signed a framework agreement with the supplier, Czech company SPM Security Paper Mill.
  • Milan Kyseľ has resigned as the state secretary of the Agriculture Ministry, following reports on dubious subsidies received by the Rimanec company, where he acted as an authorised representative until June 2020. The ministry commented that Kyseľ decided to leave after the attacks he and his family have been facing.
  • Slovak national postal services operator Slovenská Pošta has to pay a fine of €330,867 for not submitting necessary documents by the deadline and providing untrue information, as stems from the decision of the Council of the Antimonopoly Office, which looked into the practices when delivering bulk mail. Slovenská Pošta disagrees with the fine, claiming it provided the information the Antimonopoly Office had asked for and that the information was true.
  • Vets confirmed avian flu in Slovakia in two local, non-commercial breedings in late 2021. The birds there were infected by wild birds.

More on Spectator.sk today:

The small village that contains a famous pre-romanesque church Read more 

Decaying Marian column in parking lot becomes a national monument Read more 

If you have suggestions on how this news overview can be improved, you can reach us at editorial@spectator.sk.

Top stories

Stock image.

Twice as many Ukrainians work in Slovakia now than before the Russian invasion.


Píšem or pišám?

"Do ľava," (to the left) I yelled, "Nie, do prava" (no, to the right), I gasped. "Dolšie," I screamed. "Nie, nie, horšie..." My Slovak girlfriend collapsed in laughter. Was it something I said?


Matthew J. Reynolds
Czech biochemist Jan Konvalinka.

Jan Konvalinka was expecting a pandemic before Covid-19 came along.


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