SUMMARY - Thursday, 19 March 2026 - 1 p.m.

Bratislava, 19 March (TASR) - Premier Robert Fico (Smer-SD) left for a summit of leaders of European Union (EU) member state leaders in Brussels on Thursday morning. https://etasr.sk/article/23095602 Bratislava, 19 March (TASR) - Slovak Foreign Minister Juraj Blanar (Smer-SD) and his Hungarian counterpart Peter Szijjarto have sent a letter to European Commission (EC) President Ursula von der Leyen, expressing Slovakia's and Hungary's concern over media reports about EC experts being sent to the site of the alleged damage to the Druzhba oil pipeline in Ukraine without including Slovak and Hungarian experts or notifying either country, TASR learned from the Foreign Ministry's communications department on Wednesday (18 March). https://etasr.sk/article/23095642 Bratislava, 19 March (TASR) - Supreme Audit Office (NKU) head Lubomir Andrassy and Anti-monopoly Office (PMU) chair Juraj Bena have agreed that increasing attacks on the autonomy of independent state institutions could jeopardise their ability to duly perform their roles and weaken public trust in democracy and the rule of law, TASR was told by NKU spokesperson Daniela Bolech Dobakova on Thursday. https://etasr.sk/article/23095787 Bratislava, 19 March (TASR) - Economy Minister Denisa Sakova (Voice-SD) has said that she believes the governing coalition will still be functional even after the expulsion of MP Jan Ferencak (Independent) from the Voice-SD party. https://etasr.sk/article/23095841 Bratislava, 19 March (TASR) – A proposed amendment to the Civil Litigation Code doesn't have the potential to change the outcome of the personal legal dispute of Interior Minister Matus Sutaj Estok (Voice-SD), said the Interior Ministry on Thursday in response to criticism from opposition MP Ondrej Dostal (SaS), who suggested that the draft legislation could be linked to the minister's case. https://etasr.sk/article/23095871 Bratislava, 19 March (TASR) - Unemployment in Slovakia declined in February 2026, with the share of jobseekers available for work in the working-age population standing at 4.16 percent, down by 0.26 percentage points from the previous month, Labour Minister Erik Tomas (Voice-SD) told a news conference held on Thursday with Labour, Social Affairs and the Family Centre (UPSVaR) head Peter Ormandy in attendance. https://etasr.sk/article/23095910 Bratislava, 19 March (TASR) - Cultural organisations have criticised the Council of the Arts Support Fund (FPU) for cancelling valid contracts for multi-year projects at its meeting on Wednesday (18 March), describing this conduct as illegal and claiming that the Council made the decision without any discussion, TASR has learned from Michal Bereznak, director of the Nova Cvernovka cultural centre. https://etasr.sk/article/23095923 Kosice, 19 March (TASR) - One of the two children injured during a fire that broke out in a settlement near the village of Mirkovce (Presov region) on Tuesday (17 March) died at the Children's Faculty Hospital (DFN) in Kosice on Thursday, DFN spokesperson Zuzana Banikova confirmed for TASR after the tvnoviny.sk website reported the news. https://etasr.sk/article/23095926 NOTICE: If you click on the link or copy it into the search window, the browser will display the full text of the message in the new e-TASR client zone. If you have any questions, please contact obchod@tasr.sk. jrg