Slovenia News - June 2006

Slovenia News 27 June 2006

As it was gearing up for celebrations of its independence, Slovenia recognised independent Montenegro, opened its embassy in Podgorica, and published a White Paper on the border with Croatia. FM Dimitrij Rupel was in Italy meeting his counterpart Massino D'Alema in what was the first meeting with the new Italian centre-left government. Parliament had a busy week too, passing changes to the Constitution allowing for the establishment of long-awaited provinces and legislating "hora legalis" for youth under 16. "We want to be nothing less than one of the most successful states in the world. One of the beacons of the 21st century," PM Janez Jansa said at Saturday's central ceremony marking 15 years of Slovenian independence. More » "15 years on, I am glad to see that our decision to go independent was not a step in vain," President Janez Drnovsek said as he addressed a reception he hosted on Saturday for members of the then and incumbent governments and the then presidency. More » A plaque was unveiled on Saturday on the front of Cankarjev dom to honour the task force which coordinated the country's independence efforts. The conference and arts centre was chosen as the site of the plaque because 15 years ago the task force had chosen it as its "headquarters". More » The regional government of Italy's Friuli Venezia-Giulia on Friday adopted a bill to safeguard the Slovenian minority in the region. The bill now needs the green light from the regional parliament, which is expected to discuss it in the autumn. More » Slovenia established diplomatic relations with Montenegro on Wednesday, a day after the National Assembly recognised the newly-independent country. More » Representatives of 13 municipalities that lie on the shores of the Northern Adriatic have signed an Alliance for the Northern Adriatic, a charter binding them to push for environment-friendly policies in the region. More » State Secretary at the Education Ministry Magdalena Sverc, technical director at the national education institute Natalija Komljanc and the French Ambassador to Slovenia Dominique Gazuy signed on Wednesday an agreement on furthering the quality of French language lessons in Slovenian schools in 2006 and 2007. More » MPs mustered the required super majority for passing a constitutional act which paves the way for the establishment of provinces in the entire country. Articles 121, 140 and 143 of the Constitution were changed in a 69:7 vote on Tuesday afternoon. More » A special parliamentary session marked 25 June, National Day, when in 1991 Slovenia was declared an independent and sovereign state, with Speaker France Cukjati and Speaker of the then Assembly France Bucar delivering the keynote addresses. More » All three chambers of the 1991 parliament held separate sessions on Saturday to remember their decision to uphold the 1990 referendum outcome and declare Slovenia's independence, as the country is gearing up to celebrate 15 years of its sovereignty this evening. More » There are a lot of unused opportunities between Slovenia and Albania in terms of economic cooperation, Economic Affairs Minister Andrej Vizjak said as he addressed an Albanian-Slovenian business forum in Tirana on Tuesday. More » Finnish company Patria, its Slovenian representative Rotis and Slovenian home appliance maker Gorenje, have announced a joint venture for the production of 8x8 light armoured personnel vehicles for the Slovenian army. More » Almost half a year after its first bill was vetoed in parliament, the government has adopted a new wine bill that envisages the determination of three wine regions in the country. More » Slovenia is perusing a policy of reducing its dependence on nuclear energy, Environment Minister Janez Podobnik stressed on the margins of a conference on modern waste management on Tuesday. More » The main exhibition with a comprehensive presentation of Slovenia's independence process opened at the National Museum of Contemporary History in Ljubljana on Wednesday evening. More » Milan Dekleva was on Friday conferred the Kresnik Award for best Slovenian novel of the year for "Zmagoslavje podgan" (The Triumph of Rats). Earlier this year Dekleva was honoured with a Preseren Award, the most prestigious national award for achievements in arts and culture. More » Slovenian humanitarian organisation concluded on Thursday the main phase of their World for Darfur fund-raiser, which saw more than SIT 200m (EUR 834,585) collected for aid to a refugee camp in the west of this Sudanese region. More » President Janez Drnovsek has posthumously decorated dissident Joze Pucnik (1932-2003) with an Order of Exceptional Services for his "lifetime contribution to democratisation, independence and international recognition of Slovenia," the president's office said on Wednesday. More » Ljubljana Archbishop and Metropolitan Alojz Uran said that the close links between the Catholic Church and the Slovenian nation can only be understood through the historical development of the nation, which has joined Europe through Christianity and the Church. More » Schedule of Events from 27 June to 2 July More »

Slovenia News 20 June 2006

EU leaders approved Slovenia's bid to join the eurozone on 1 January 2007 at their summit in Brussels on Friday, 16 June, in what is one of the last steps in the changeover process. The first expansion of the eurozone with one of the new EU member states is "an important and extremely positive" step forward in the economic and monetary integration of the EU, the leaders, including Slovenian PM Janez Jansa, said in their decision. This political decision comes a day after the European Parliament gave its endorsement to Slovenia's bid to become the first new member of the 12-strong eurozone. In his response to the decision, PM Janez Jansa said that Slovenia's euro switch on 1 January 2007 was historical, while entering the eurozone is the country's biggest achievement since joining the EU in May 2004. The EU's nod for Slovenia's euro switch on 1 January 2007 is historical, while entering the eurozone is the country's biggest achievement since joining the EU in May 2004, PM Janez Jansa said at the close of the EU summit in Brussels on Friday. More » The Foreign Ministry on Monday published a White Paper on the disputed parts of the border between Slovenia and Croatia, with Slovenian FM Dimitrij Rupel labelling the document a means of facilitating dialogue between the two sides. More » Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader has announced a Croatian "blue paper" in response to Slovenia's white paper on the border with Croatia that was unveiled on Monday. More » Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Jansa and Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel opened the new Slovenian Embassy in Brussels on Friday, which is much bigger than the old one and which will allow the issuance of visas in line with Schengen standards. More » In a Europe of regions it is important that the regions do not compete among themselves but cooperate, Governor General of Austria's Styria region Franz Voves said in a meeting with Slovenian Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel. More » The cabinet drafted Wednesday a SIT 170bn (EUR 710m) bill on the implementation of the 2008-2015 development programmes of the Slovenian Armed Forces, Defence Minister Karl Erjavec told the press after the cabinet's session. More » The government on Wednesday drafted amendments to the national border control act, which, according to Interior Minister Dragutin Mate, establishes an appropriate legal basis for preventing illegal border crossings. More » Slovenian president Janez Drnovsek discussed the possibility of constructing a gas pipeline across Slovenia to Italy with the chairman of the Russsian gas giant Gazprom Alexey Miller, who he met on Tuesday at the sidelines of the 10th International Forum in St. Petersburg. More » Slovenia's gross domestic product measured at purchasing power parity reached 80% of the EU average in 2005, according to data released by Eurostat on Thursday. More » The Public Agency for Entrepreneurship and Foreign investment is expected to open this year Slovenian branch offices in Duesseldorf, Bucharest, Istanbul and Milan, the first such Slovenian trade offices in the world. More » Russian gas giant Gazprom has reiterated its interest in a pipeline that would run across Slovenia to Italy in a meeting between its president Alexei Miller and Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Jansa on Saturday in Strunjan. More » The Belgian banking and financial group KBC has begun procedures to reduce its stake in Slovenia's largest bank, NLB, KBC vice-chairman Andre Bergen has told the press. More » Slovenia is a country that takes seriously its commitments to the NATO-led operations in Kosovo and Afghanistan, John P. Colston, NATO assistant secretary general for defence policy and planning, said in Ljubljana on Tuesday as the Defence Review Committee that he heads paid a visit. More » The transport ministers of countries crossed by the tenth pan-European transport route between Salzburg and Thessaloniki, including Slovenia's Janez Bozic, signed a protocol on cross-border cooperation in Greece's Corfu on Friday. More » A 20,000-strong crowd of Depeche Mode fans went into raptures on Wednesday evening, as the legendary British band made a stopover in Slovenia for the first time in their 26-year history during the world tour "Touring the Angel". More » Ljubljana Summer Festival 2006 is to open on Monday with the famous New York Philharmonic Orchestra, led by conductor Lorin Maazel. The concert will honour Mozart by playing his Symphony No. 41 in C-Major, KV 551 "Jupiter" and Mahler's Symphony No. 1 in D-Minor. More » Some ten people started on Sunday a protest walk from Ljubljana to Koper, staged by the non-parliamentary Active Slovenia party to protest against the planned gas terminals in the Gulf of Trieste. More » Representatives of the Ministry of Culture, the municipality of Bled, the Bled Culture Institute and the National Museum have signed an agreement giving caretaker duties for the famous Bled Castle to the Bled Culture Institute. More » Schedule of Events from 20 to 25 June More »

Slovenia News 13 June 2006

The government has urged the parliament to recognise Montenegro as an independent state. According to the proposal, which the government adopted on Thursday, 8 June, Slovenia should recognise Montenegro as soon as possible after a relevant decision is taken by a relevant EU body. The case against Mitja Ribicic, the former senior Communist official who is suspected of having played a major role in the summary killings of civilians after the Second World War, has stumbled at the first obstacle: the supreme state prosecutor proposed on Monday, that a special team of historians be set up to investigate the matter, but the investigating judge rejected the motion four days later. The motion will now be taken over by a panel of three judges. More » Franc Perko, the retired archbishop of Belgrade, wondered until when the Communist totalitarian mentality will reign in Slovenia, asking "when will we truly be free", at a mass commemorating the post World War II killings of domobranci (Home Guard) on Sunday. More » The government has urged the parliament to recognise Montenegro as an independent state. According to the proposal, which the government adopted on Thursday, Slovenia should recognise Montenegro as soon as possible after a relevant decision is taken by a relevant EU body. More » President Janez Drnovsek will on Tuesday attend the opening of the 10th International Economic Forum in Russia's Saint Petersburg, nicknamed the Russian "Davos". More » Slovenia's Consul General in the US city of Cleveland, Zvone Zigon, has said that his main mission on taking the post nearly a year ago was to unite all Slovenian organisations in the city. By staging a celebration marking 15 years of Slovenian independence, I have managed to do that, he added. More » Prime Minister Janez Jansa is to pay a visit to the US between 7 and 11 July, and is to be received by US President George W. Bush in the White House on 10 July, Jansa's office said on Wednesday. More » The supervisory board for the 2004-2006 Single Programming Document (SPD) has discussed Slovenia's drawing of EU funds, saying that 70.8% of all contracts worth SIT 56bn (EUR 232.8m) were signed by the end of April 2006, a rise from 58% in the same period in 2005. More » The Defence Ministry has chosen Rotis, a company representing Finish Patria, as the company to supply the Slovenian army with at least 64 8x8 light armoured personnel vehicles, Defence Minister Karl Erjavec told the press on Monday. More » Five wines, including two Slovenian vintages, were crowned world champions at the 52nd Ljubljana International Wine Tasting, which finished on Tuesday. More » Slovenia's landscape is marked with well-preserved and biotically diverse forests, which cover 1.16 million hectares or 57.7% of the country, placing Slovenia among one of the most heavily wooded countries in Europe, according to the Slovenian Institute for Forests (ZGS). More » Slovenian Higher Education, Science and Technology Minister Jure Zupan has said that Eureka's main advantage lies in the simple but excellently organised network, at a conference on the programme in Prague. More » Slovenia has joined the majority of EU member states in its support of the formation of regional energy markets which can represent a transitional phase in the formation of a single EU energy market, a senior government official has said. More » The European Union in not in a crisis, however, the bloc's communication with the people and effective response to their expectations is, Mihela Zupancic, the head of the European Commission's Representation Office in Slovenia, said in Ljubljana. More » EU finance ministers are expected to give Slovenia the go-ahead to become the 13th member of the eurozone on 1 January 2007 as they convene the final meeting under Austria's EU presidency on Wednesday. More » Slovenian preparations for the euro changeover are well underway, whereby Slovenia has the advantage of being able to learn from the experiences of the eurozone member countries, a member of the executive board of the European Central Bank (ECB) has said. More » The government decided to pay another SIT 24m (EUR 100,000) into the NATO fund for training Iraqi security forces, doubling the amount it has already paid in February and March. More » The city of Katowice is hosting the first retrospective of Slovenian film in Poland since 1991, offering seven films that provide a dynamic insight into what some of Slovenia's most acclaimed authors put on screen in the past decade. More » The latest film by the up-and-coming director Igor Sterk "Uglasevanje" (Tuning) won the "Vesuvio Award" main prize at the 8th Naples Film Festival, held between 4 and 11 June in Italy's Naples, the Slovenian Film Fund said on Monday. More » Employers and employees in the retail sector have broken a deadlock over the Sunday opening of shops with an agreement that Sunday opening hours will be governed by the sectoral collective agreement, not the trade act. More » Slovenian ultra-marathon swimmer Martin Strel will swim 450 km of the total of 707 km of the Drava river to mark Slovenia's 15 years of independence, he told the press on Thursday as he announced yet another of his extremist challenges. More » A three-day conference in migration flows in the Mediterranean was launched on Wednesday in Brdo pri Kranju. In his opening address FM Dimitrij Rupel highlighted cooperation between countries as an important means of successful migration management. More » Schedule of Events from 13 to 18 June More »

Slovenia News 6 June 2006

In a week of international events involving Slovenia, the spotlight was on the three-day official visit to Russia by Prime Minister Janez Jansa and a strong team of ministers and businessmen as well as on talks by President Janez Drnovsek and representatives of a rebel group from the Sudanese region of Darfur. Slovenia moreover assumed chairmanship over the Human Security Network, an informal group of states for promoting human rights. Prime Minister Jansa and Putin expressed their pleasure over the economic cooperation between the two countries and called for Russian investments into Slovenian economy. Jansa also met his counterpart Mikhail Fradkov, with whom he agreed that Russia would pay its US$ 129m clearing debt in the next five years. The 18th anniversary of a historic incident for Slovenia was marked on Thursday with a meeting of the three journalists and a non-commissioned officer, among them PM Janez Jansa, who were tried before a military court for exposing secret orders of the Yugoslav People's Army (JLA). More » More than 160 events across Slovenia are to mark 15 years of the country's independence. The central ceremony is to be held in Ljubljana on 24 June, on the eve of National Day. More » Spearheading a strong government and business delegation, Prime Minister Janez Jansa began a three-day official visit to the Russian Federation on 29 May, meeting numerous high-ranking Russian officials, including President Vladimir Putin. More » President Janez Drnovsek failed to convince the Darfur rebel group Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) to sign up to the Darfur peace accord during the 30 and 31 May talks in Ljubljana. More » Slovenia began its one year stint as president of the Human Security Network (HSN) on Friday, as the network's two-day ministerial meeting came to a close in Bangkok, the capital city of the HSN's previous chair, Thailand. More » The Slovenian Foreign Ministry on Sunday congratulated the Montenegrin authorities upon Saturday's declaration of Montenegrin independence. More » President Janez Drnovsek presented former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl with a Slovenian Order of Merit, which was handed to Kohl by Slovenian MEP Alojz Peterle in Berlin on Friday. More » Representatives of green parties from Slovenia, Austria, Italy and Croatia signed a declaration establishing the Green Forum Alpe Adria on Thursday, with the aim to improve environmental protection, strengthen the greens' voice in the European Parliament, and promote a Europe of regions and good neighbourly relations. More » Logistics company Intereuropa is planning to build a logistics centre near the Russian capital of Moscow and the company's CEO Andrej Lovsin was looking at suitable locations for the EUR 8m to 10m investment on Monday, Intereuropa said on Tuesday. More » The Slovenian Export Corporation (SID) and Russia's biggest bank Sberbank have signed an agreement on cooperation aimed at facilitating trade between Slovenia and Russia, SID said on Monday. More » The latest edition of the Economic Mirror, published by the Institute of Macroeconomic Analysis and Development (IMAD), recorded an increase in the annual inflation rate (3.2%; May), exports (18.7%) and imports (18.1%) in Q1. More » The government has adopted a model of reform for the EU's common agricultural policy in Slovenia in the 2007-2013 period, opting for a regional payments scheme with production-tied subsidies. More » EU justice and interior ministers reached agreement on Thursday on an EU-wide evidence warrant which is expected to simplify and speed up the sharing of evidence such as documents and data in cases of cross-border crime. More » As part of a campaign on the introduction of the euro in Slovenia, the Government PR and Media Office and the Bank of Slovenia have prepared a special publication which will be sent to households across Slovenia in the coming days. More » The government gave the green light to the Motorway Company (DARS) for taking out a EUR 300m loan with the European Investment Bank (EIB), as it held a correspondence session on Friday. More » The Druga godba world music festival opened in Ljubljana on Tuesday on an Asian note, with the Slovenian-Indian project Sagar and the 15-member Indonesian group Sambasunda performing at the Cankarjev dom arts and convention centre. More » "The Slovenian PEN Centre is held in high esteem within International PEN, as we are extremely active given the small size of the Slovenian centre and of our language area," Slovenian PEN president Tone Persak has said. More » An exhibition of costume designer Alan Hranitelj's creations will be on view at the International Centre of Graphic Arts (MGLC) between 1 June and 10 September. The exhibition presents 150 theatre, opera and film costumes, festive outfits and fashion accessories. More » Slovenia is celebrating 15 years of its independence this year. On 25 June 1991 the then Slovenian National Assembly put into force the decision made in an independence referendum in December 1990 prompting a violent response by the Yugoslav People's Army (JLA). More » Cardinal Franc Rode criticised cultural relativism as he delivered a sermon during a Mass he celebrated together with several church dignitaries at St. Nicholas Cathedral in Ljubljana on Sunday afternoon. This was the last stop on his two-day visit to Slovenia. More » A banner with the word "Change" was placed on top of a monument in Preseren Square in Ljubljana's city centre, marking the launch of the European Commission's environmental campaign on raising the public's awareness about climate changes. More » The 80,000-strong Slovenian community in Cleveland, Ohio, the largest in any city outside of Slovenia, will begin its month-long celebrations marking 15 years of Slovenian statehood on Monday. More » Changes to the law on smoking which aim to ensure the complete protection of all people in public and working environments from the dangers of passive smoking were announced by Health Minister Andrej Brucan at a press conference on Wednesday on World No Tobacco Day. More » The European Union retained its October 2007 deadline for the expansion of the Schengen border agreement, despite a possible 10 to 15 week delay in implementing the Schengen Information System (SIS II), Interior Minister Dragutin Mate has said. More » Schedule of Events from 6 to 11 June More »

Archive

year month 2008 1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   10   11   12 2007 1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   10   11   12 2006 1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   10   11   12 2005 1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   10   11   12 2004 1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   10   11   12

© Government Communication Office