By blocking important roads with their lorries, Slovak carriers wanted to express their discontent over the running of the newly-introduced tolling system. Last week, the protest evoked traffic jams in major cities over Slovakia.

The number of lorries stuck on the border crossing points to Slovakia is increasing. The problems caused by introductions of new Slovak electronic road toll system.

"The new electronic road-toll system is not ready," stated the Union of Slovak Motor Carriers (UNAS). As much as the operator SkyToll claims that the system has been launched and works perfectly, transport companies disagree with that.

According to UNAS, 20 Turkish truck drivers couldn't secure a board unit anywhere in Slovakia while passing through. From Trstena to Ruzomberok (both in Zilina region), the drivers couldn't get a single working board unit. They were told the system had crashed and the registration is not possible.

The minimum wage in Slovakia rose by 4.1 percent to €307.70 per month as of January 1, in line with a Government decision from October.

The Slovak Labour Ministry originally planned to increase the minimum wage of €295.5 per month by 8.1 percent as proposed by the unions. The Tripartite partners have met to negotiate the issue several times since August, but were unable to reach agreement, and the Government decided to set the increase at 4.1 percent.

The Slovak Republic changes the system of charging the road infrastructure from highway stickers to the electronic toll collection system. The new electronic tolling system put into operation at midnight on 1st January 2010.

The new seat of the EU Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER) will be in Slovenia's capital Ljubljana, EU energy ministers decided at their meeting in Brussels on Sunday. Slovenia won by receiving 15 votes, Slovakia failed getting the second place with 11 votes.

The supply of houses and apartments in Slovakia will still outstrip the demand in the near future, says an analysis of the Slovak Central Bank.
Real estate prices are expected to stagnate in 2010. The average price per square metre reached €1,322 in third quarter of this year. According to NBS, a mild drop in prices should continue until the end of 2009.

The gas crisis in January 2009 has also had positive effects. Everybody experienced what means the 98-percent dependence on one supplier. The reverse-flow supply of natural gas from the Czech Republic was a great example of European regional solidarity.

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico made a working visit to Moscow, during which he met his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin and the CEO of Russian gas concern Gazprom Alexei Miller. The main topic of the discussions were energy-related economic co-operation and other areas of bilateral co-operation.

Over the second quarter of 2009, the average nominal monthly wage in economy of the Slovak republic was EUR 732,50. Compared with the corresponding period of previous year, the average nominal monthly wage increased by 2,8 %, while the real average monthly wage increased by 0,5 %.