February
2001
Slovakia
Master Report (January 2001)
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Slovakia Master Report (January 2001) |
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1. Overview Memo
Since 1995 (after the first Ministerial EU/CEEC Forum on Information Society) the Slovak Republic has been involved on an international level into CEEC activities in Information Society. In March 1996, the Ministry of Transport, Post and Telecommunications of the Slovak Republic in co-operation with the EC, organised an international panel conference of Central and Eastern European countries and EU member states on the topic of "Legislative and Institutional Framework of the Information Society".
During the 1997 a co-ordination committee involving representatives of relevant ministries begun to co-ordinate activities and support participation of the Slovak Republic in various activities at national and international levels which were related to the conclusions of the 1st and 2nd EU/CEEC Forum on the information society. Additionally, several ministries have begun supporting participation of the Slovak Republic in pilot projects of the Action Plan, adopted at the 2nd Forum of EU and CEEC on the information society.
The Ministry of Transport, Post and Telecommunications in 1997 started implementing the problems of the Information Society to the telecommunication policy of the Slovak Republic (document "Concept of the Information Society Policy in the Telecommunication Sector of the Slovak Republic"). During the 1998-2000 period a governmental grant "Telecommunication Infrastructure Support for Transformation to Multimedia Services of the Information Society" has been realised by the Research Institute of the Posts and Telecommunications (VUS).
In 1998 a special project was launched called INFOVEK on internet access for basic and secondary schools with the support of the Open Society Fund and later with the direct support of the Ministry of Education. During 2000 the Ministry of Education started to prepare a document on procedure and implementation stages of the most important governmental documents related to the information society. In January 2001 there is expectation to submit it to the government.
In December 2000 a draft law on electronic signatures was submitted to Parliament. The law is expected to boost trading and business in Slovakia by allowing ‘electronic signatures’ to be used to verify all kinds of documents, thus speeding communication between institutions, companies, banks and individuals through Internet and e-mail. The legislation has been in preparation at the Ministry of Economy for almost two years. While both government and parliament have been trying to push forward this law, the 2001 budget indicates that there won’t be enough money to begin with this project in 2001 as was originally planned, and it will probably start in 2002.
The Government of Slovakia has recently started to look at Information Society issues and is currently preparing a National Strategy on Information Society. No surveys have been conducted in Slovakia regarding information Society, however, an Internet site named "Information Society Slovakia" has been developed and is being administrated by VUS – The Research Institute of Posts and Telecommunications. Its main goal is to support development of Information Society issues in the country. The site started as a platform for the exchange of information among experts and now operates as a point of contact for companies interested in establishing an Action Plan and for the preparation of a National Strategy of Information Society in Slovakia. This site is working on connecting to the ISPO main site.
2. Latest Developments in Information Society
took place in Bratislava from November 7-9 and was organized by Infostat Bratislava in co-operation with the Council of Government for informatics and the Slovak association for informatics. The major topics discussed at the seminar were: Information society development – present status and perspectives; Information systems in the state administration; E-business; and the use of progressive IT in the 2000 population census in the Slovak Republic. The seminar was attended by approximately 110 participants mostly from the Office of the Government of the Slovak Republic, Ministries and other government level organisations. ITC companies dealers and application software developers were also present at the seminar. At the closure there were several recommendations adopted aiming at the promotion of the activities in the parliament of the Slovak republic on information society development (ie. creation of a parliamentary committee for information society development), to speed up the process of adoption of relevant legislation for e-commerce etc..2.1 COMMactions
INFOSEM 2000 - an international seminar on information society development
2.2 EXPEactions
According to the Slovak Spectator (Oct. 2-8, 2000), at the end of September beginning of October 2000, Nextra a subsidiary of Norway’s Telenor finalized the acquisition of an eastern region Slovakian ISP - Vadium company. Vadium is a typical local player, focused on the Internet access business. The Slovakian ISP market is consolidating and has seen in the last two years nine purchases by three firms – Nextra, Slovanet, and EuroWeb.
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