On Tuesday, Slovak President Andrej Kiska signed a number of laws. The most prominent law is the state budget for 2016. Kiska met with Finance Minister Peter Kažimír prior to signing it and asked him to explain the increase in the planned revenues of the budget, which wasn't based on an expert estimate by the parliamentary committee on tax prognosis. The Minister informed him of improved tax collection, which should also be reflected in the state's revenues in 2016. "Based on promises made by the finance minister to postpone any new expenditures in 2016 until tax collection is shown to be improved, the President signed the law", reads a statement of the President's Office. The public finance deficit should reach 1.93 percent of GDP in 2016, while it is expected to decrease to 0.42 percent in 2017 and to zero in 2018.
In addition to warning text, cigarette packages will also feature warning pictures to show the harmfulness of smoking, reads the amendment that President Andrej Kiska signed into law on Tuesday. The designs will feature, for instance, a picture of a woman coughing up blood, a young man in a morgue or photographs of damaged eyes, teeth or limbs. According to the Health Ministry, the use of combined text and visual warnings is more effective than just text warnings. The warnings are also to gain more prominence in the layout of the packs.
The President also signed an amendment to the law on the conditions for running vehicles. Any intentional manipulation of vehicle distance-travelled gauges (odometers) will be banned as of March. This amendment bans the purchase of equipment or software or services for illegally manipulating vehicle clocks. The law will directly affect those who tamper with clocks and related services and not customers who sell cars without knowing that the clocks have been turned back. According to the Car Drivers Protection Association, there are around 130,000 cars with altered clocks in Slovakia. The Slovak Trade Inspectorate will be able to penalise such behaviour with fines of €5,000-50,000.
