Sulik's Second Package for Facilitating Business Includes 207 Measures

Bratislava, October 28 (TASR) – The second package of measures aimed at improving the business environment, prepared by the Economy Ministry, has been reduced from the original 469 to 207 measures, said Economy Minister Richard Sulik (Freedom and Solidarity/SaS) on Thursday, adding that the measures should save the business sector some €200 million.

The proposal has been submitted for inter-departmental review. Following its approval by the Government, the ministry intends to submit it to Parliament as early as in November.

Sulik specified that 17 of the originally proposed measures were found to be in force already via other pieces of legislation, while the ministry has withdrawn 83 measures following objections and decided to shift some others to the third package that it’s already preparing. Meanwhile, 131 proposals were rejected, but the ministry will continue to push for them in cooperation with Premier Eduard Heger, said Sulik. “So, 207 draft measures were left, they’ve already been approved and we’re going to implement them,” added Sulik.

The highest number of changes (35) from the second package will be implemented by the Economy Ministry, while 31 concern the Finance Ministry. The Labour and Agriculture Ministries will implement 20 measures each, while implementation of the remaining changes has been divided among 13 other institutions.

The Economy Ministry, for example, proposes that documents from an electronic mailbox should be usable for legal activities without guaranteed conversion, it wants to enable the sale of non-food goods after their expiry dates and simplify the obligation to report stays by foreign visitors. Further changes will introduce a option for driving schools to provide instruction via e-learning, while hygiene requirements in catering facilities will be eased.

Parliament passed the first package of measures aimed at improving the business environment last July. That package included 114 changes.