A week later - today's world as seen from Bratislava

Things are changing with an aunexpected pace in Slovakia as weel. Only a week after the serious lecturing delivered at the adress of Hungary the SME begin to relize that the problems looming over Slovakia are in fact larger than expected. Today they published an article with the title "The budget in state of an heart attack". The tone of the piece is substantially different from earlier one and it prophesizes that without major modifications (that means cuts on expenses) the deficit can reach a level the dubble of the forecasted. The resons: the collapse of VAT incomes, the loss of revenue from corporate taxes, the relatively high sums paid out for "stimulus pacakges". The danger: with a higher deficit Slovakia won't be recieve financing and investment from abroad, as the example of Hungary shows. The conbclusion: Slovakia need to adjust its udget to the circumstances and cease with the practice to give for everybody who raies his hands.

But the SME was not deviating too far from its earlier opinion. Although one could think that it is a profound change, there are signs contrary. The perceptible intention is to attack Fico, who is fra from being beloved by the liberal newspaper and as we can see the usual "Hungary-complex" remained, only to be reversed, this time put forward as a threatening example of collapse. But as things are going forward we can expect further changes as well.