Heger wakes up the tiger. Three quarters of Slovaks demand fundamental reforms – PRAVDA.sk

“The optimization of the hospital network, the new court map and the change in the organization of universities – this is the beginning of the necessary reforms that will come into play in the coming years and get Slovakia in shape,” said Prime Minister Eduard Heger (OĽaNO).

“It is not a point to spend as much European money as possible. These changes are so necessary that they are already provoking passionate discussions today, “points out Lívia Vašáková, Director General of the Recovery Plan Section at the Office of the Government. She added that this is also a new mechanism in the Union and she does not know what rules she has to set for the Member States.

“Reforms do not require investment, political willingness is enough,” hints Heger’s optimism INESS analyst Robert Chovanculiak. According to him, it is finance that often masks unpopular measures. The first small steps have begun in education, but the Reform Act itself is still in parliament.

The Ministry of Health is also preparing to reform hospitals and the outpatient network. However, it does not only meet with a positive response. Even the judicial map, the backbone of judicial reform, does not have an easy transition through approval by the National Council.

However, Heger recalls that the last reforms were made in 2003. “And since then, Slovakia has lived on these reforms,” ​​he added.

The prime minister’s vision is also based on the results of the How Are You, Slovakia survey, prepared by the Slovak Academy of Sciences. It shows that three quarters of Slovaks are calling for fundamental reforms. People in our country consider healthcare to be the absolute top priority and consider its development to be the most important for a better future for the country.

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Healthcare, courts, education

The main topic of the reform autumn is healthcare. It will begin by optimizing the network of hospitals. Within it, hospitals are divided into five categories. According to the Minister of Health Vladimír Lengvarský (nom. OĽaNO), community and regional should be close to home, but they will provide only basic care. Complex hospitals in larger cities should treat most diseases, and terminal and national hospitals should specialize more. Lengvarský described the optimization of the hospital network as a breakthrough and the largest in the last 17 years, and Heger also promised the construction of new hospitals and the reconstruction of older hospitals.

The reform plan will also finance the reform of the judiciary, and a new court map will be created. “It is necessary to make a change in the organization of courts so that we have a judge who is an expert,” said Minister of Justice Mária Kolíková (For a Fair Slovakia). According to her, judges should focus on the chosen agenda and therefore hopes that the judges will become experts in the given issue. This means that courts should have their specialists in criminal, civil, family and commercial law.

“We are not reforming because of the recovery plan, but we want to prepare the ground for judges in the future. The court map is about having care available, “explains Kolíková, according to whom this is not the case today. She is therefore sending a package of five laws to members of parliament, although she originally wanted to change justice through a constitutional law.

The third priority of autumn is education. Education Minister Branislav Gröhling (SaS) promises that funding from the recovery plan will “help every single student from kindergarten to university.” Funds from the recovery plan will go to regional and higher education. Kindergartens should be expanded, the content of education will change, finances will also go to the digitization of schools or teacher education.

Will he be able to pass?

Lívia Vašáková, Director General of the Recovery Plan Section at the Office of the Government, notes that some Member States are no longer meeting the set milestones and added that the rules will be set in 2022.

According to her, the milestones set in the recovery plan, on the basis of which Slovakia can request payment from the European Commission, can only be delayed by political will.

However, Heger is convinced that “the state will focus on bringing about change.” He added that the people want to see results, and therefore he will negotiate with coalition partners so that the reforms can be enforced.

“Reforms do not require investment, but political willingness is enough,” he told Pravda.

However, INESS analyst Robert Chovanculiak points out that political willingness is needed in the first place. “We know what systemic things need to be changed, but I’m afraid that now it will be insulated instead and schools will be built,” he warns.

He recalls that there is already experience in the past, when the European Union failed to enforce the rules. “I am rather skeptical about the possibilities that the union will have to punish the government if it does not meet the goals,” Chovanculiak continues.

Will Slovakia be able to draw 6.3 billion euros from the Recovery and Resilience Plan? “But I’m afraid they won’t be able to exhaust it. That they can’t pour the concrete, or insulate it, and build it, because they won’t be able to do all those projects and contracts. The money will be spent quickly and they can’t even spend it, “predicts Chovanculiak.

Lengvarsky: You’ll see in three years

According to Lengvarský, the Slovak healthcare system has an investment debt of five billion and will receive a billion from the recovery plan. He is therefore not afraid that he will not have time to spend the money, but in order for it to come, the law on the reform of the hospital network must pass the parliament. At a government meeting, he came across a motion of resentment from the We Are Family movement. The Minister of Labor Milan Krajniak (We Are a Family) stated that he would not support the reform, in which they will not be guaranteed that no hospitals will be closed. Lengvarsky reiterated that “no hospital will be closed.”

“They will be transformed based on the catchment area, the number of operations,” he added, adding that the final list should not be known until the end of 2022. The first changes should be felt by the patient within three years.

So far, however, the Minister of Health has not been able to convince the hospitals themselves that the planned transformation is reasonable.

Kolíková: We need expert judges

Judicial reforms are still in their infancy. “When we go to court, we will get a decision in a reasonable time that we understand,” says Kolíková from the citizen’s point of view. Therefore, according to her, it is essential that the judge does not jump from the family agenda to the criminal one, for example. “We have to arrange for him to focus on one, otherwise we will not have experts in the field,” she added.

Kolíková has prepared a package of reform laws to support the change of the court map. However, she had once been burned and had to withdraw the proposal and prepare it again. Even now, however, there are voices that do not like the changes in the court map.

The mayor of Trenčín, Richard Rybníček, has been dissatisfied for a long time, and the mayor of Trenčín, Jaroslav Baška (Smer), has also joined. Rybníček talks about the humiliation of the city, which will not have a regional court. Kolíková rebukes that she worked only 22 days on the reform and did not take into account the comments of the judicial councils. It prevents Bašek that several towns within the self-governing region will lose the district courts.

Gröhling: You can already feel the changes

According to the Minister of Education Branislav Gröhling, school reforms “feel today”. He added that the goal is for the funds from the recovery plan to help every single student from kindergarten to university. According to him, the funds from the recovery plan will go to regional and higher education. Kindergartens should be expanded, the content of education will change, finances will also go to the digitization of schools or teacher education.

“I think the support programs in the recovery plan are very well thought out. However, it is questionable whether this will change the quality of pedagogical work, especially if the burden on teachers increases, “recalls sociologist Zuzana Kusá.

Within higher education, for example, there will be a change in the financing of higher education. However, Gröhling had already encountered it in higher education. The announced reform, which also concerned academic self-government, was rejected not only by universities, but also by their students. Some schools were on strike and the problem is not completely over.

The head of the Ministry of Education has been promising a lot since the transformation of the Slovak Academy of Sciences. So far, this is the only reform that is going through without major problems, but it is also not over yet.

The head of the education department pointed out that the first funds were already drawing from the recovery plan and the first calls had been announced. Funding will go mainly to students from socially disadvantaged backgrounds and students at risk of school failure, such as children’s school clubs, kindergarten staff or tutoring.

However, this department is beginning to struggle with an acute shortage of qualified teachers, which are basically to be replaced by students. The professional rebukes Gröhling for not being able to provide full online education for all children. Not only schoolchildren from marginalized groups, but also from families where they have more compulsory school children have problems with technology or internet connection.

Slovaks want reform

The issue of fundamental changes was also addressed in the survey How are you, Slovakia, according to which three quarters of Slovaks are calling for fundamental reforms. The survey shows that healthcare in Slovakia is considered an absolute top priority and its development is considered to be the most important for a better future for Slovakia. Three-quarters of respondents are currently worried about whether they will be provided with the necessary health care in the hospital. Most respondents are not satisfied with the level of care provided by the hospital in their place of residence or nearby.

The decision to optimize the hospital network has so far prevailed. However, almost 44 percent of respondents said that they fully or rather agree that there should be fewer but better quality hospitals in Slovakia.

The survey also showed a high level of distrust in the case of the judiciary. The judiciary in Slovakia is perceived in society as weak and unreliable. 69.7 percent of respondents tend to trust the courts rather or completely, and more than two-thirds of the population, 72.3 percent, think that their decisions are poorly reasoned.

The physical proximity of the court proves to be a less important factor than the speed and quality of decision-making itself. A clearly communicated decision is more important to people than winning in court. For 64.9 percent of respondents, qualified judges are the most important for the good functioning of the courts.

Higher education also has a bad reputation in the eyes of the majority of the population – it provides a low level of education – 68.5 percent; quality does not reach the European level – 54.6 percent; and will not teach graduates the skills they need for their job – 60.7 percent.