The government launched efforts last week to get Slovenia classified as two statistical regions in the EU in order to bolster the country's financial position following the failure of EU budget talks last week. By adopting the bill on the promotion of balanced regional development, the government started paving the way to negotiations with the EU.
A number of ceremonies at the end of the week marked the 14th anniversary of Slovenia's independence, with the national ceremony in Republic Square in Ljubljana Friday evening, on the eve of National Day.
A number of ceremonies at the end of the week marked the 14th anniversary of Slovenia's independence, with the national ceremony in Republic Square in Ljubljana Friday evening, on the eve of National Day. More »
Ahead of the 14th anniversary of Slovenia's independence, President Janez Drnovsek received congratulations from statesmen such as UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, Pope Benedict XVI, German President Horst Koehler, Russia's Vladimir Putin, Czech Vaclav Klaus and Serbian President Svetozar Marovic. More »
The government on Thursday passed the bill on the promotion of balanced regional development that envisages the country's division into two cohesion regions in order to facilitate the phasing of EU funds. The bill on the promotion of balanced regional development, which envisages the country's division into two cohesion regions, is to be passed in an emergency procedure in July. The decision was taken on Monday by the collegiate body of the parliament speaker. More »
The Slovenian cabinet adopted Thursday a development strategy for the country which focuses on a socially-based market economy and whose aim is to see Slovenia exceed the average development of the EU by 2015. According to Prime Minister Janez Jansa, this will require ambitious but attainable economic growth of 5% per year. More »
Parliament on Wednesday confirmed the controversial government-sponsored bill on RTV Slovenija, which promises an overhaul of the public broadcaster's management structure and programming. The opposition walked out of the session, protesting against what it labelled a "violent" legislative procedure. More »
Andreja Kocijancic, a professor at the Faculty of Medicine, was elected the new chancellor of the University of Ljubljana in Tuesday's run-off, succeeding two-term Chancellor Joze Menciger. More »
More than 150 representatives from 27 countries will discuss ways of fighting terrorism as a four-day NATO-Russia Council conference begins in Ljubljana on Tuesday. More »
The Slovenian director Vinko Moederndorfer won the award for best director at the 13th International Film Festival Art Film, which took place between 17 and 25 June in Trencianske Teplice in Slovakia. Moederndorfer received a "Blue Angel" for his film "Suburbs", for which he also wrote the screenplay, the website of the festival says. More »
The 26th Ljubljana International Biennial of Graphic Arts (MGB) entitled "Thrust" is to kick off on Thursday. Its curator Jure Mikuz invited 18 institutions from Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas to each put up a show to address the dilemmas of what the graphic arts are today. More »
The 13th Lent Festival, Slovenia's biggest summer festival, kicked off on Friday evening. In sixteen days, over 400 events are to be held in the old city centre of Maribor. The organisers expect at least half a million visitors from Slovenia and abroad. More »
Historian and musicologist Primoz Kuret on Thursday received the "Cross of Honour for Science and Art" of the first order, conferred by the Republic of Austria for his outstanding achievement in promoting cooperation between Austria and Slovenia. More »
Alojz Rebula, an acclaimed fiction writer from Italy's Trieste, has received the Kresnik Award for best Slovenian novel of the year. Rebula was awarded for "Nocturne for Primorsko", a novel about a priest from the region of Primorsko set against the backdrop of Fascism. More »
Ljubljana, 23 June
Slovenia News 21 June 2005
Editorial
Slovenia saw its hopes for a speedy EU budget deal dashed at the EU summit last week. The collapse of talks on spending in the bloc for 2007-2013 will likely mean Slovenia will get less funds than it hoped for. PM Janez Jansa announced the country would now launch efforts to be reclassified as more than one statistical region in order to secure as much regional aid as possible in the future.
It will be one year on 28 June since Slovenia joined the ERM II exchange rate mechanism, the waiting room for the euro. There have been no shake-ups so far: the exchange rate is steadily hovering around the central parity rate of SIT 239.64 per euro.
Danilo Tuerk, assistant UN secretary general for political affairs, says he does not bear grudges against UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, who passed him over for promotion. "I know that the secretary general takes decisions in a complex situation and his decisions are not his alone." More »
Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Jansa has expressed regret over the failure of the EU to find agreement on the bloc's budget arrangements for 2007-2013. The rich members showed "a fair share of egotism" in the talks, which made a deal impossible, he said after the EU budget talks collapsed late on Friday in Brussels. More »
The head of the European Commission representation office in Slovenia, Erwan Fouere, whose term in office is expiring, paid a farewell visit to President Janez Drnovsek on Friday. More »
It will be one year on 28 June since Slovenia joined the ERM II exchange rate mechanism, the waiting room for the euro. There have been no shake-ups so far: the exchange rate is steadily hovering around the central parity rate of SIT 239.64 per euro, and the central bank has had to intervene only once on the monetary market. More »
Slovenian carrier Adria Airways has signed a contact with Air France Industrie (AFI) to carry out maintenance works on Airbus A 319, A 320 and A 321 aircraft for AIF. More »
Business daily Finance has ranked grocer Mercator as the biggest Slovenian company, while rating drug maker Krka as the best Slovenian company in its survey "101 Biggest and Best Slovenian Companies". More »
Participants of the 4th Noordung Forum, held in Ljubljana on Tuesday under the title "Citizens and the Lisbon Strategy", highlighted that citizens would need to be stimulated to cooperate in the preparation and implementation of the national action plan for the Lisbon agenda. More »
Writers attending the 71st International PEN congress have called upon the authorities worldwide to respect freedom of expression. The appeal is included in several resolutions that the participants passed at the end of the week-long congress at Bled on Monday. More »
Bled, 20 June
Slovenia News 14 June 2005
Editorial
Slovenian and Croatian cabinets held the first joint session ever last week, substantiating the tentative moves towards the resolution of open issues that the prime ministers made earlier this year. At the same time, the government was frantically preparing for the final round of EU budget talks at the 16 June summit, which might determine Slovenia's budget position in the 2007-2013 period.
For Slovenia, the proposal for the 2007-2013 EU budget that the Luxembourg EU presidency has put forward makes it possible to wrap up budget negotiations: it gives Slovenia more money for cohesion than the current budget framework, economist Mojmir Mrak said. More »
The signing of several agreements, including an accord on avoiding double taxation, wrapped up the joint session of the Slovenian and Croatian governments on Friday. Additionally, the ministers agreed to hold regular sessions twice a year, with the next meeting to take place in Slovenia by the end of the year. More »
President Janez Drnovsek called for reconciliation and forgiveness as he addressed the national remembrance ceremony for the victims of post-war summary killings at the Teharje Memorial Park on Saturday. More »
Prime Minister Janez Jansa said after Wednesday's talks with the EU presiding Luxembourg PM Jean-Claude Juncker that Slovenia wished its position as EU net receiver to be twice as good as the present one in the next EU financial period. More »
The umbrella organisation of the European steel industry, Eurofer, was kicking off a two-day conference aimed at reviewing current trends in the industry on Thursday in Ljubljana. More »
Slovenia and two other EU member states, Cyprus and Slovakia, became members of the European University Institute (EUI), a post-graduate studies institution based near Florence. The EUI specialises in legal, economic and political studies from the aspect of European integration. More »
The Ministry for Higher Education, Science and Technology Jure Zupan has presented a set of measures with which it hopes to make Slovenia one of the leading European countries in terms of the IT society. More »
European Regional Policy Commissioner Danuta Huebner has urged Slovenian officials to use every euro available from the EU's funds. After inspecting several EU-funded projects durign a working visit on Wednesday, Hubner said Slovenia has been successful in phasing various types of EU funding. More »
NATO has proposed that Slovenia should reassess the appropriateness of its Pilatus planes and patrol boat, capabilities that are not directly associated with the increase in the alliances capabilities, Defence Minister Karl Erjavec said on the margins of meeting of NATO defence ministers on Thursday. More »
The "A+A" gallery, which will be Slovenia's national pavilion during the 51st Venice Biennial, opened on Friday evening, anticipating the Sunday grand opening of the biennial. Slovenia is represented by Vadim Fiskin's installation "Another Speedy Day". More »
Three Slovenian art projects will be featured at the LIPA Gallery (short for Links for International Promotion of the Arts) in the centre of Chicago between 10 June and 8 July. More »
Some 300 authors from around the globe are expected to converge on the lakeside resort of Bled today for the 71st world congress of International PEN, the worldwide literary and human rights association founded in England in 1921. More »
Five wines, three of them from Slovenia, were crowned world champions at the Ljubljana International Wine Tasting that was held between 3 and 6 June. More »
Slovenian poet, translator and academician Ciril Zlobec is this year's winner of the Fulvio Tomizza Award, given out by the Lions Club Trieste Europa for promoting the ideals of understanding and peaceful coexistence among the people living along the national border. More »
The Tourist Association of Slovenia (TZS) is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year, which the association's president Marjan Rozic hopes will provide an impetus to the country's tourist development. More »
Ljubljana hosted a spring plenary session of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly last week with trans-Atlantic relations stirring most of the debate. While evaluating the French and Dutch rejection of the EU constitution Prime Minister Janez Janša has said that it spells the "end of the (EU) honeymoon", a time of great optimism in the bloc and added that a new period was here in which progress in the EU would not be so natural any more.
The 4th festival of non-governmental organisations will get under way in Ljubljana on Tuesday, focusing on the promotion of dialogue in civil society under the slogan "A Step Towards Dialogue". More »
A traditional commemoration for the victims of extrajudicial killings in the woods of Kocevski Rog, southeast, was held on Sunday at a mass grave of several thousand members of the Domobranci militia who were liquidated by partisan units in June 1945. More »
"Integration of the Western Balkans is in the strategic interest of the EU," Slovenian PM Janez Jansa said Sunday as he stressed how important it was for SE European countries to have EU prospects. Speaking at a forum in Austria, he also called for ratification of the European constitution. More »
The government on Thursday amended the act on foreigners. Pending approval in parliament, the amendments will simplify the procedure for obtaining permanent residency for EU citizens. More »
The government has adopted a draft resolution on the national programme for equal opportunities for the period 2005-2013, which will now be sent to parliament. More »
The government adopted Thursday a strategy for the information campaign on the country's euro adoption, which is due to be launched in the first months of 2006. More »
Slovenia cannot support the European Commission's compromise proposal on the working time directive, Labour Minister Janez Drobnic said on Thursday. "Due to the requirements of the public sector, in particular health care, the cap on extensions to the 48-hour working week within three years is unacceptable," he said. More »
The European steel industry umbrella organisation Eurofer is to launch a two-day conference on Thursday in Ljubljana. Hosted by the Slovenian Steel Group (SIJ), this year's event is to analyse conditions on the steel market in a bid to set future guidelines for the industry. More »
Prime Minister Janez Janša has said the French and Dutch rejection of the EU constitution spells the "end of the (EU) honeymoon", a time of great optimism in the bloc. Speaking on Thursday in Ljubljana, Janša said a new period was here in which progress in the EU would not be so natural any more. More »
Slovenia's contribution to the EU budget for this year will amount to EUR 285m instead of the initially planned EUR 300m. This was disclosed in Brussels on Monday after the European Commission adjusted member states' contributions for a second time this year. More »
Prime Minister Janez Janša pledged that Slovenia would stay a strong partner in NATO as he held talks with NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer at the sidelines of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly's session in Ljubljana on Tuesday. As Janša told a joint news conference after the meeting, Slovenia is committed to fulfiling its obligations in providing stability and security in the trans-Atlantic area together with NATO. More »
"We want Slovenian film to be part of our national culture, and we want to support it. This is a commitment of culture policy," Culture Minister Vasko Simoniti stressed as he addressed the main ceremony marking 100 years of Slovenian film on Sunday evening. More »
The 21st annual Druga godba festival of world music opened on Monday with a concert featuring Huun Huur Tu, the masters of throat-singing from Tuva, a republic in northwestern Mongolia. More »
The Slovenian Association of Journalists conferred annual awards on Thursday, with the life achievement award going to retired international affairs commentator Jurij Gustincic. More »
Extreme cyclist Marko Baloh will be taking part in this year's Race Across America (RAAM), joining his compatriot Jure Robic, last year's winner of what is considered as one of the hardest cycling races in the world. More »