VZCZCXRO4177
PP RUEHIK
DE RUEHSL #0486 3241443
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P R 201443Z NOV 09
FM AMEMBASSY BRATISLAVA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 0269
INFO RHEFDIA/DIA WASHINGTON DC
RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE
RUEHSL/AMEMBASSY BRATISLAVA 0316
RHEHAAA/NSC WASHINGTON DC
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHDC

UNCLAS BRATISLAVA 000486 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR EUR/CE J. MOORE AND M. LIBBY 
STATE FOR INR/EU A. HARMATA 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV ECON EINV LO
SUBJECT: SLOVAK CABINET MOVES TO UNDERMINE ANTITRUST OVERSIGHT 
 
REF: BRATISLAVA 464 
 
¶1. (U) In a move that would strip the Slovak government's 
Antitrust Office of its oversight authority over recent 
consolidation in the health insurance industry, the cabinet 
approved this week an amendment to the Health Insurance law that 
will finalize the merger of two large state-owned insurance 
companies.  The parliament has agreed to fast-track this 
legislation, which would render moot an ongoing antitrust review 
begun in July.  The newly merged company will have 3.65 million 
policy holders, or about two-thirds of a Slovak market that will 
soon be served by only three health insurers. 
 
¶2. (SBU) This move is the latest in what appears to be a growing 
trend in which the Slovak government uses expedited legislation 
to change or circumvent the laws regulating business in ad hoc 
responses to specific cases.  Due to the opacity of the process 
by which the cabinet drafts laws, fast-tracked legislation is 
little-debated and often passed into law before the public is 
aware of what is happening.  The recent and much criticized 
Strategic Enterprise Law (reftel) was largely an effort to 
prevent the closure of a large chemical factory employing 1500 
workers, although it sparked intense controversy when business 
interests realized that it could have a much broader 
application. 
 
¶3. (U) Other similar cases include expedited legislation to 
change corporate governance rules in a successful effort to 
prevent the partially privatized natural gas monopoly from 
raising prices, and changing the law on payment of dividends in 
order to prevent foreign-owned health insurance companies from 
repatriating their profits.  This latter law has been challenged 
in a UN-affiliated arbitration court, and the European 
Commission has separately begun an inquiry. 
 
¶4. (SBU) COMMENT:  This sort of non-transparent and ad hoc 
regulatory change is enabled by PM Robert Fico's firm control 
over the Slovak parliament--with characteristic understatement 
he recently described his Smer party as enjoying a "dominant" 
position in Slovak politics.  Such control allows Fico to use 
the parliament when it suits him to circumvent slower-moving or 
more independent government bodies and to step outside--or, more 
precisely, to change--the government's legal framework according 
to the exigencies of the moment. 
 
EDDINS