MORNING NEWS HIGHLIGHTS - Tuesday, 12 August 2025 - 9 a.m.

TASR brings a quick morning overview of the most important events seen in Slovakia on the previous day (Monday, 11 August): BRATISLAVA - The ambulance service tender will be lawfully cancelled, Health Minister Kamil Sasko (Voice-SD) said in a statement sent to TASR by the ministry spokeswoman Veronika Danicova. The minister claims that according to the first results of the analyses which he requested last week from the Emergency Medical Service Operations Centre (OS ZZS), there was legal uncertainty that could have allowed different interpretation of the legal regulation of the ongoing tender. At the same time, according to him, the transparency of the whole process could have been jeopardised. Sasko said that as of Tuesday (12 August) he'll entrust the OS ZZS management to a new statutory officer, who will take all necessary steps to scrap the tender in the shortest possible time, fully in accordance with the law. "The current system of selecting ambulance operators has been in place in Slovakia for 20 years since the time of [former health] minister [Rudolf] Zajac [2002-2006] and has never been changed. Now it has turned out that this system isn't good, because it failed to prevent suspicions of non-transparency, although the responsibility for it wasn't borne by politicians, but by experts. That's why, as health minister, I'll present a proposal for a new system in the coming days, which we'll discuss with our coalition partners," added Sasko. BRATISLAVA - Marian Povolny has resigned from the post of director of the Emergency Medical Service Operations Centre (OS ZZS), the centre's deputy spokesman Richard Boljesik confirmed for TASR on Monday, adding that he did so of his own volition. Povolny has led the operations centre since February. OS ZZS has been mentioned in connection with the much-criticised ambulance service tender in the past couple of weeks, and opposition parties have initiated a no-confidence motion in Health Minister Kamil Sasko (Voice-SD) over the tender. MP Tomas Szalay (Freedom and Solidarity/SaS) in connection with the motion pointed to a selection procedure for the OS ZZS head that took place at the Health Ministry last Thursday (7 August) and was reportedly won by Povolny. BRATISLAVA – The Interior Ministry has expanded its register of non-governmental organisations (NGOs), which now also includes data from other sources and official records, the ministry's State Secretary Michal Kalinak (Voice-SD) told a press conference on Monday, denying that these changes are a 'hammer' to be used against NGOs. Also attending the press conference were Government Proxy for Civil Society Development Simona Zacharova and head of the Interior Ministry's organisation for public sector digitation Tomas Olexa. According to Kalinak, the register of NGOs is now set up in a manner that makes it possible to provide additional information on NGOs under one roof, such as information concerning the Central Register of Contracts, court rulings, the Land Registry, the Register of Public Sector Partners, risk-linked events, financial analyses and the publishing of financial statements. He said that gaps in terms of transparency have accumulated in this sector over the years. "This is a compass for quick and convenient reference," he said, again denying that it was intended as an attack on NGOs. He sees no double standard in this case when compared to how transparency is approached in other sectors. BRATISLAVA - The Tourism and Sport Ministry has proposed that the levy on gambling should be increased by a maximum of 1 percent to 28 percent, Tourism and Sport Minister Rudolf Huliak (Independent) told a press conference held on Monday jointly with Tipos national lottery company director Michal Hutnik, adding that it won't agree to anything higher than that, as it would disrupt the whole betting market. "The result wouldn't be more money for the state budget from gambling levies, but, conversely, a decrease in the levies collected, as smaller gambling operators would disappear completely, which would lead to punters moving to illegal online casinos," stated Huliak. At the same time, the ministry wants to submit an amendment to the gambling law to the Coalition Council and allow Tipos to operate self-service terminals for number lotteries. This step is intended to allow Tipos to operate brick-and-mortar casinos with the aim of generating more revenue for the state. Huliak presented another amendment as part of setting up a betting companies chamber, which will be chaired by Tipos. The ministry will insist that only Tipos, as a state-owned company, will continue to operate number lotteries. BRATISLAVA - The incident from the town of Backi Petrovac is a purely domestic political matter of sovereign Serbia and has nothing to do with the status of the Slovak national minority, to which the Slovak government, in cooperation with the Serbian one, is paying special attention, Premier Robert Fico (Smer-SD) said on a social network in connection with the weekend incident at the Slovak National Festivities, where an exhibition of photographs documenting student protests in Serbia was attacked. "The Serbian government deserves our thanks for its approach to Slovaks living in Serbia. As usual, the clever-clever liberals and progressives ignore objective information, interfere in the affairs of sovereign Serbia and contribute to the further division of the people," said the prime minister in response to the opposition's criticism of the incident. Fico explained that, as prime minister, he had received detailed information about the event that occurred during the festivities. "The information confirms that the citizens of Serbia of Slovak nationality, like other citizens of Serbia, are politically divided into several camps. Different views on government and opposition policies in Serbia create room for political conflicts of different scale and intensity. We don't have to go far for examples, because a similar situation exists in Slovakia," he stated. The opposition Progressive Slovakia (PS) and Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) parties criticised the Slovak government for its inaction in the case of the weekend incident at the Slovak National Festivities in the Serbian town of Backi Petrovac in the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina. SaS demands that the government act immediately and summon the Serbian ambassador, who should explain all the circumstances and how the investigation is proceeding. An attack on an exhibition of photographs documenting student protests in Serbia took place at the Slovak National Festivities in Backi Petrovac on Saturday (9 August). The exhibition was organised by the Slovak minority. The conflict, including skirmishes, took place between members of President Aleksandar Vucic's governing Serbian Progressive Party and citizens who had prepared an exhibition of photographs of the anti-government protests. During the clash, the photographs on display were damaged and several people sustained minor injuries. BRATISLAVA - Slovakia's construction output stood at €735 million in June 2025, up 9.1 percent year-on-year (y-o-y) in fixed prices, the Statistics Office reported on Monday. On a monthly basis, the increase was the biggest since January 2023, with June also being the first month in 2025 in which construction output exceeded €700 million. Seasonally adjusted, construction output increased by 1.7 percent from May 2025. The positive result was driven by more dynamic growth across all sectors. The most significant sector, domestic new construction, increased by 5.9 percent, while repairs and maintenance construction work saw double-digit growth of as much as 15.8 percent. Domestic construction output accounted for 88 percent of total construction output. Concerning the type of construction, the most important construction of buildings rose 7.6 percent y-o-y when adjusted for inflation, with work on civil engineering structures, including motorways, reporting an increase of 9.5 percent y-o-y. am