MORNING NEWS HIGHLIGHTS - Friday, April 26, 2024 - 9 a.m.

TASR brings a quick morning overview of the most important events seen in Slovakia on the previous day (Thursday, April 25): BRATISLAVA - The government is preparing to mobilise all the resources at Slovakia's disposal and wants to find out what the possibilities are for resources from the state budget and the European Union (EU), said Prime Minister Robert Fico (Smer-SD) on Thursday following an inspection day at the Investments, Regional Development and Informatisation Ministry, stressing that resources from EU funds are irreplaceable for Slovakia. "Instead of getting closer to the EU standard of living, we're moving further away, and all other indicators that are compared today are extremely negative for Slovakia. We need to get back on a growth trajectory that will bring us closer to the EU average, not further away from it. Under these conditions, it's important that we say what options we have in terms of mobilising resources in the state budget, what options we have in terms of resources from the EU," said Fico. BRATISLAVA - Instead of development and prosperity, Slovakia runs the risk of seeing its EU funds stopped over its dissolution of the rule of law, opposition MP Veronika Remisova ('Slovakia'-For the People-KU) declared at a press conference on Thursday. Remisova responded this way to Prime Minister Robert Fico's (Smer-SD) inspection visit to the Investments, Regional Development and Informatisation Ministry, headed by Richard Rasi (Voice-SD), earlier in the day. "Instead of development and prosperity, Slovakia runs the risk of being completely cut off from the EU money. Rasi, together with Robert Fico, have put us with their catastrophic decisions into a situation, in which Brussels might stop all of our EU funds and money from the Recovery Plan over the dissolution of the rule of law, and that money was supposed to go to schools, hospitals and new roads," warned Remisova. BRATISLAVA - The Justice Ministry asked the Supreme Court only for access to records on how court cases have been distributed from the docket via the information system and it hasn't asked for access to the full database or specific files, Justice Minister Boris Susko (Smer-SD) declared on Thursday. Susko fails to understand why the Justice Ministry shouldn't have the right to supervise the process and signalled that this effort will continue, seeing as he believes that there are doubts over the distribution of cases. Susko claimed that he was shocked when he learnt that the ministry hasn't been given access to records on the distribution of files, seeing as the ministry is the administrator of the information system. "Under previous governments, the Justice Ministry, for the purposes of supervision of the information system, had remote access to it, including the database of Supreme Court files," he pointed out and added that the Specialised Criminal Court had voiced no reservations against such supervision. BRATISLAVA - The Christian Democrats (KDH) want to make sure that costs related to health care management cannot be foisted upon patients, pointing out that even though the current legislation bans doctors from charging fees for giving specific-time appointments to patients, in practice the ban is often circumvented by having third parties charge the patients. KDH urged Health Minister Zuzana Dolinkova (Voice-SD) to support their bill to remedy the situation. "Our bill says that the patient management falls under the provision of health care and it's a free-of-charge service [...] We're a great nation, always capable of devising various ways to get round. Hence, a system emerged in which if the provider of health care - a specific doctor or outpatient department - delegates [the making of appointments] to a non-provider of health care, the law no longer applies," said MP Peter Stachura (KDH). BRATISLAVA - Defence Ministry State Secretary Igor Melicher welcomed a delegation of the United States of America led by Lisa Sawyer, US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defence for European and NATO Policy, to Bratislava on Tuesday (April 23), TASR was told by the ministry's communications department on Thursday. The aim of the meeting was to find specific overlaps within cooperation on modernisation projects, joint exercises and the training of military personnel, bilateral military cooperation and technical cooperation. "The delegations held bilateral talks within the 'High Level Defence Group' format on current developments in the global security environment, including the war in Ukraine, the ongoing instability in the Middle East and current developments in the Indo-Pacific region. They exchanged information on the opportunities for cooperation at the level of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation ahead of the NATO summit in Washington," said the ministry. BRATISLAVA - Growth in the Slovak economy should accelerate to 1.9 percent this year from the 1.1 percent recorded last year, according to the latest forecasts by analysts from selected banks that are published every month by Slovakia's central bank (NBS), a slight improvement on their estimate in March when they expected economic growth to reach 1.8 percent. The inflation outlook for this year is also better. Analysts are currently forecasting that the average harmonised index of consumer prices (HICP) will stand at 3.1 percent, an improvement on the 3.3 percent predicted in March. They expect the same for core inflation, which is expected to fall from 9.5 percent last year to 3.2 percent this year. ko