MORNING NEWS HIGHLIGHTS - Wednesday, December 4, 2024 - 9 a.m.

TASR brings a quick morning overview of the most important events seen in Slovakia on the previous day (Tuesday, December 3): BRATISLAVA - The general government deficit is expected to fall to 4.7 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) next year from this year's expected 5.8 percent of GDP, as MPs approved the law on the state budget for next year on Tuesday. The state budget deficit should thus amount to €6.4 billion. MPs also acknowledged the general government budget for 2025-2027 with slight adjustments when compared to the government's original draft. The state budget law was backed by all 79 MPs supporting the governing coalition, while the remaining 58 of the 137 lawmakers present for the vote were against. Total state budget revenues for next year are projected at €27.6 million, with expenditures at €34 billion. Public administration revenues should reach €59.9 billion or 42.8 percent of GDP. The total spending of the public sector is budgeted at €66.5 billion or 47.5 percent of GDP. BRATISLAVA - The unemployment rate in terms of the proportion of unemployed among the economically active population amounted to 5.4 percent in the third quarter of this year, down 0.5 percentage points (p.p.) year-on-year (y-o-y), the Statistics Office reported on Tuesday. After seasonal adjustments, 146,300 people were unemployed in Slovakia. Both key unemployment indicators - the number of people out of work and the unemployment rate - were at record lows since 1994. The majority of the unemployed, over 63 percent, had been out of work for more than a year. Their number continued to fall significantly, however, by 9.3 percent year-on-year in third quarter. The number of long-term unemployed thus remained well below 100,000 people. Short-term unemployment also fell significantly, by 8 percent, to almost 54,000 people. More than a third of the unemployed have never worked before, including school-leavers. This figure went down by 2.1 percent y-o-y. BRATISLAVA - The opposition Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) party is warning that the government might declare a state of emergency due to the situation regarding doctors' resignation notices, TASR learnt at a press conference held by SaS MPs on Tuesday. The party rejects such a move and doesn't consider forcing doctors to work by adopting a state of emergency to be a solution. "According to our information, the government is going to adopt a bill at its session that would address the situation by introducing forced labour for doctors who have filed resignation notices," stated MP Tomas Szalay (SaS), criticising the alleged plan and claiming that this is a government failure. "Forced labour is not the solution. The government wants to force doctors to work against their will instead of addressing the causes of the crisis over which these doctors handed in their notice," he stated. BRATISLAVA - The people suspected of involvement in preparing a possible terrorist attack on critical infrastructure in eastern Slovakia have been detained and expelled, Interior Minister Matus Sutaj Estok has stated in a video post on social media. "One person was deported to Hungary, and the other was immediately handed over to the competent authorities in Ukraine as part of the deportation process," said the minister, adding that two foreign nationals and one Slovak citizen are suspected of preparing an attack intended to destroy or disable a key energy facility, namely a gas and oil pipeline. "These individuals were using drones in a no-fly zone to monitor specific pieces of energy infrastructure," he noted. BRATISLAVA - Ondrej Mularcik, the lawyer defending Slovak central bank (NBS) governor Peter K. [name abbreviated due to legal reasons], who is facing prosecution for bribery, maintains that Specialised Criminal Court judge Milan Cisarik should have ended the trial when the Supreme Court reached its decision on new statutes of limitation. Speaking at a press conference on Tuesday, Mularcik declared that the continuation of the trial after the Supreme Court's decision is unexpected and unusual. Fully expecting the NBS governor's bribery case to become subject to newly introduced statutes of limitation, the defence didn't even complete its closing speech at the main trail on November 29. BRATISLAVA - An unidentified man called the 158 police hotline on Tuesday morning to say that he was planning to set himself on fire on Hodzovo Square in front of the Presidential Palace in Bratislava, the Bratislava police posted on a social network, adding that they are currently investigating the matter. "Shortly after 10 a.m. today we received information via the 158 telephone line according to which an unknown man stated ... that he was going to appear in front of the Presidential Palace on Hodzovo Square, where he planned to set himself on fire," said the police, adding that they immediately took the necessary steps to protect life and health. ko