All other countries in the EU make use of legislation that allows them to apply reduced VAT rates to book publishing. The average VAT on books in the EU is about 6%, and in some European countries – including the UK, Ireland, Norway and Slovakia’s neighbour, the Czech Republic – books are zero-rated for VAT purposes.

the new basic rate of 23% rather than the current rate of 10%.

I kind of feel like there’s gonna be a rise in Slovakian-language bookstores just across the border in Czechia.