Mezei István: Urban development in Slovakia (Pécs-Somorja, 2010)
4. Towns in Slovakia after 1993
The effect of geopolitics on the urban network tolerate. It demanded that Slovakia should belong to the trans-Atlantic field of force. This is the underlying reason for the victory of the Dzurinda government. The political leadership in power after 1998 approved the rules of parliamentary democracy based on universal suffrage, as well as the division of the branches of power and the model of the social market economy. A criterion of this political system is the implementation of the principle of self-governance in practice, i.e. the development of the local and regional government system by restricting institutionalized state will. The trans-Atlantic political system is basically affected by the principle of competition, the competition of persons and institutions - including elected representatives, mayors and other leaders selected by competition - as well as the competition of settlements and towns. This political system provides the most opportunities for particular settlements to obtain outstanding roles based on the abilities of their inhabitants, but also, due to the lack of the necessary abilities in their inhabitants, they may fall into insignificance and become lacking in character. Competition is always based on performance. However, nowhere is performance alone victorious; there are influencing factors everywhere, and the extent of these factors should be considered. If performance is highly influenced by other factors, such as corruption, the power of politicians, their relatives, etc., we may call it Balkanization. The uninterrupted development of Slovakia during the decades of socialism did not produce the basis in the economy on which construction would have been possible after the change of regime (1989) and the foundation of the new state (1993). Analysts found the heritage of the communist economic policy and the activity of the first governments of the new state alarming. The performance of Slovak economy achieved one-third that of the former Czechoslovakia and even compared to its neighbouring countries (Poland, Ukraine, Austria, the Czech Republic and Hungary), it was much lower in the first half of the 1990s. The value added to the products was rather low, because of the extremely high rate of semi-finished products. The efficiency of production was only 20-30% of the average of the countries of the European Union. The out-of-date technology had huge energy intensity as a consequence (the iron works in Košice) and led to severe environmental damage (the aluminium works in Žiar nad Hronom). The underdeveloped machine industry meant severe problems for the economy. Analysts expected the reorganization of the particular sectors of the economy, modernization, open markets, 99
