Prime Minister Janez Jansa and Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel underlined the economic and political importance of the Caspian region as they opened the Caspian Outlook 2008 conference at Bled on Saturday. They said the forum would not be a political showing, but a big brainstorm for debates about key issues affecting the world. Explaining the reason why the Caspian has been chosen as the first topic of the newly-established Bled Strategic Forum, Rupel said the first answer was energy. "I think we all agree as to the strategic importance of Caspian energy; the prerogative is to develop the Caspian region into a transparent, stable and competitive energy partner," he said.
The foreign ministers of Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan voiced the desire for a future in Euro-Atlantic organisations as they spoke at a panel on the EU's neighbourhood policy at the Caspian Outlook 2008 conference at Bled on Monday. They welcomed the fact that the South Caucasus is becoming an important part of the neighbourhood policy.
Slovenian oil trader Petrol and Russian oil giant Lukoil signed a framework agreement to establish a joint venture for the sale of oil derivatives in Central and SE Europe.
The Caspian region is gaining in strategic importance for Europe due to its rich energy sources, and it will become the EU's immediate neighbourhood once Romania and Bulgaria become full-fledged members. Answers to some of the questions about the bloc's future policy towards the region are expected at the Caspian Outlook 2008 conference, which started at Bled on Sunday. More »
With its reserves of oil and gas the Caspian region will play a key role on European and global energy markets, agreed the participants of the first panel organised at the Caspian Outlook 2008 conference on Sunday. More »
PM Janez Jansa expressed Slovenia's support for further strengthening of cooperation between the EU and the Caspian region as he met Azeri President Ilham Aliyev on Sunday as part of the Caspian Outlook 2008 conference at Bled. More »
Prime Minister Janez Jansa and Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel underlined the economic and political importance of the Caspian region as they opened the Caspian Outlook 2008 conference at Bled on Saturday. They said the forum would not be a political showing, but a big brainstorm for debates about key issues affecting the world. More »
The foreign ministers of Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan voiced the desire for a future in Euro-Atlantic organisations as they spoke at a panel on the EU's neighbourhood policy at the Caspian Outlook 2008 conference at Bled on Monday. More »
Slovenian PM Janez Jansa talked to his Croatian counterpart Ivo Sanader following media reports about activities by a Croatian construction company in a disputed stretch of land near the Hotiza border crossing. "I believe this will be resolved so that there are no actions which would deteriorate the situation," Jansa told the press on Monday. More »
President Janez Drnovsek expects that his special envoy to Sudan's region of Darfur, Tomo Kriznar, will be released from prison soon. "According to official and unofficial information we've got, Kriznar's case is going on well," Drnovsek said on Monday. More »
Azeri President Ilham Aliyev stressed that good possibilities are opening up for cooperation between Azerbaijan and the EU in the field of energy, as he met his Slovenian host and counterpart Janez Drnovsek in Brdo pri Kranju on Monday. More »
The government adopted Thursday the act on execution of judgments in civil matters and insurance of claims, with Justice Minister Lovro Sturm explaining after the session that the amendments are designed to tackle court backlogs. More »
Minister of Labour, Family and Social Affairs Janez Drobnic presented the press on Monday a series of 14 debates on the social inclusion of people who are hard to employ, stressing that rather favourable conditions in Slovenia are also a result of financial aid of the European Social Fund. More »
Slovenia's lone oil refinery Nafta Lendava is likely to be privatised, 61 years after being established. A letter of intent on such a move was signed on Monday by Slovenian Economy Minister Andrej Vizjak and Vagit Alekperov, chairman of Russia's oil giant Lukoil. More »
Slovenian oil trader Petrol and Russian oil giant Lukoil signed a framework agreement to establish a joint venture for the sale of oil derivatives in Central and SE Europe, representatives of both companies said after signing the deal in Ljubljana on Monday. More »
Agriculture Minister Marija Lukacic promised new measures to help Slovenian agriculture as she delivered the opening address at the 44th International Agriculture and Food Fair in Gornja Radgona on Saturday. More »
Slovenia is thinking about sending between 10 and 20 soldiers to the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel told his counterparts at Friday's extraordinary meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels. More »
The 12th Sarajevo Film Festival, the biggest film festival in South-Eastern Europe, closed on Saturday with Slovenian filmmakers Marko Santic and Blaz Kutin bagging three prestigious prizes. More »
Schedule of Events from 29 August to 3 September More »
Slovenia News 22 August 2006
Editorial
Speaking at the first celebration marking the unification of Slovenia's northeasternmost region with the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes in 1919, Jansa pointed out that it was high time for staging such a celebration. "Ever since (the unification) Slovenian politics was burdened with a certain embarrassment about Prekmurje and a justifiable guilty conscience. It was high time that such a situation ends, and a state holiday is enacted" he stressed.
Tomo Kriznar, President Janez Drnovsek's envoy to Darfur, was sentenced to two years in prison by a court in the Sudanese city of Al Fasher on Monday, 14 August. Kriznar, who has been in custody since 20 July, was charged by the court of first instance with entering Sudan illegally, spying and spreading lies about the Sudanese government and people.
Interior Minister Dragutin Mate called for better security for key infrastructure after meeting with several of his EU counterparts in London on Wednesday. More »
The importance of the fact that Prekmurje was united with Slovenia after the end of WWI was neglected, as Slovenians at that time rued the (teritorial) losses in the north and west, Prime Minister Janez Jansa said in Beltinci (NE) on Friday. More »
Cardinal Franc Rode, the former archbishop of Ljubljana, said that all Slovenians are responsible for their homeland and that they should strive to make it a "place of justice, solidarity and brotherhood", as he celebrated a special mass for the homeland in Beltinci on Friday. More »
Tomo Kriznar, President Janez Drnovsek's envoy to Darfur, was sentenced to two years in prison by a court in the Sudanese city of Al Fasher on Monday, 14 August. More »
Slovenia's registered unemployment rate stood at 9.7% in June, up 0.1 percentage points over May, according to the Statistical Office. The registered unemployment rate for the first six months of this year averaged 10%. More »
The International Agriculture and Food Fair, which will open on 26 August in the eastern town of Gornja Radgona, is starting to recover after several years of decline. The 44th annual event, which is to close on 1 September, will feature 1,530 exhibitors from 25 countries over an area of 58,000 square metres, said the organisers at Wednesday's press conference. More »
The second rotation of four Slovenian military instructors arrived in Baghdad last week, the Defence Ministry said on Monday. They are based in the al-Rustamiya training centre and have been taking over their duties in the past few days. More »
The 10th annual Days of Wine an Poetry festival is to open on 23 August in Medana, a small village in the hilly wine-growing region of Goriska Brda in western Slovenia. The theme of this year's event will be avantgarde and poetry. More »
The archbishop and metropolitan of Ljubljana used his sermon on the Assumption of the Virgin Mary holiday to discuss the role of family, birth rate and the issue of embryonic stem cell research. He has also urged the international community and the Slovenian government to advocate the immediate end of wars. More »
Slovenia has urged the international community to act with greater resolution towards providing general access to preventive AIDS programmes, treatment, care and assistance by 2010. The appeal comes in a statement Slovenia issued as the chair of the Human Security Network at the 16th International AIDS Conference. More »
The building of a new conference hall has been launched at the Brdo pri Kranju diplomatic protocol complex as part of Slovenia's preparations for its stint as EU president in the first half of 2008.
The three-story building with over 9,000 sq. metres of meeting areas, including a large conference room and smaller rooms for bilateral meetings, will host major EU meetings when Slovenia holds the EU presidency.
Slovenia has welcomed the adoption of a UN Security Council resolution calling for the full cessation of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah. More »
The cabinet adopted a bill on public procurement and a bill on public procurement in the areas of water, energy, transport and postal services at its correspondence session on Friday. More »
The parliamentary defence committee has rejected a proposal by the opposition Liberal Democracy (LDS) and Social Democrats (SD) which have called on the cabinet to reverse its decision to send a second rotation of four military instructors to Iraq because the situation there is too dangerous. More »
Slovenian police have assessed that the security situation in the country has not deteriorated after the recent arrests of alleged terrorists in Great Britain. Nevertheless, the situation is being continually reassessed and the intensity of individual measures adequately adapted, the police said in a press release on Friday. More »
The building of a new conference hall has been launched at the Brdo pri Kranju diplomatic protocol complex as part of Slovenia's preparations for its stint as EU president in the first half of 2008. More »
Construction workers digging a ditch for new public utility infrastructure near Ljubljana city centre have come across archaeological findings from the period of the Roman city of Emona, dating back to the 4th century AD. More »
A holographic exhibition on the life of Vienna Jews opened on Tuesday evening at the mediaeval synagogue in Maribor. The historical exhibition, conceived by the curator of Jewish Museum Vienna Felicitas Heimann-Jelinek, is showing the history of Jews living in the Austrian capital. More »
Matic Osovnikar has taken third place in the men's 100 metres at the European Athletics Championships in Gothenburg. Osovnikar set a new Slovenian record of 10.14 seconds en route to a place on the podium. More »
Parliament Speaker France Cukjati has issued writs for local elections to be held on 22 October. According to the decree that Cukjati signed on Thursday, 3 August, preparations for the election of 210 mayors and almost 3,400 municipal councillors will kick off on 21 August.
Health Minister Andrej Brucan and Bojan Bokalic, director of medical equipment supplier Soca oprema, last week signed a contract on the supply of 18 operating tables for five Slovenian hospitals, ending a much-criticised public procurement procedure that dragged on for some two years. The urgently-needed operating tables should be completely installed by the end of October.
Local elections will be carried out in 210 municipalities this year, since 17 new municipalities have joined the existing 193 after two consultative referendums. The new municipalities have less than 5000 inhabitants, who will elect 8 to 15 representatives to their municipal councils. More »
A memorial plaque, dedicated to the Cardinal and Archbishop of Zagreb Alojzije Stepinac at the 70th anniversary of his ascent to Mt. Triglav (2864m), was unveiled on Saturday at Kredarica, some 300 metres below Slovenia's highest peak. More »
The head of the anti-corruption commission has said that the police is the bottleneck in tackling corruption in Slovenia, as he presented a report by the Group of States Against Corruption (GRECO). More »
Slovenia is ready for very constructive talks with Croatia, but "it will not be giving any further concessions," Slovenian Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel said in Ljubljana on Tuesday. More »
Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel said Tuesday that the ministry has launched an investigation into how Karl Smolle, a representative of the Slovenian minority in Austria, managed to get hold of diplomatic dispatches sent by the Slovenian embassy in Austria. More »
The Slovenian Foreign Ministry on Monday assured that it is doing everything in its power to secure the release of Tomo Kriznar, President Janez Drnovsek's special envoy to the western Sudanese province of Darfur. More »
Measures to promote the employment of disabled persons, including quotas for companies, have started to bear fruit: in the first seven months of 2006 1,107 unemployed disabled persons got a job, up 40% year-on-year and as much as in the whole of 2003 or 2004, the Ministry of Labour, Family and Social Affairs said on Monday. More »
Slovenia has been invited to a special United Nations meeting of countries that are willing to contribute troops for a possible peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, the Foreign Ministry confirmed on Wednesday. More »
Pharmaceutical company Krka has reported a 23% increase in its half-yearly net profit of SIT 12.4bn (EUR 51.74m). The figure would have been even higher had Krka not increased its provisions. More »
The Bank of Slovenia has followed the European Central Bank (ECB) in raising key interest rates in the country by 0.25 basis points. In line with Thursday's decision, the rate of 60-days tolar bills has been raised to 3.5%. More »
The Bank of Slovenia has signed a contract with the company AB Line on the supply of 700,000 calculators to Slovenian households for tolar-euro conversions. More »
A ceremony took place at the barracks in Celje on Friday ahead of the departure on Monday of the sixth contingent of the Slovenian army to a six-month mission in Afghanistan. More »
As part of the 250 anniversary of the birth of the famous Austrian composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, ten video recordings of Mozart's greatest operas and concertos will be screened at the Ljubljana Castle as part of the Ljubljana Summer Festival 2006. More »
Slovenian swimmer Matjaz Markic bagged Slovenia's first medal at this year's European Swimming Championships with a third place in the men's 50 metres breaststroke final on Saturday in Budapest. More »
Four Slovenian track and field athletes made it to the semifinals on the first day of the 19th European Athletics Championships in Sweden's Gothenburg on Monday. More »
Health Minister Andrej Brucan and the director of Soca oprema, a supplier of medical equipment, on Friday signed a contract on the supply of 18 operating tables for five Slovenian hospitals, ending a much-criticised public procurement procedure that dragged on for years. More »
Slovenia is looking into various avenues to resolve open issues, but it is difficult to tell whether there will be enough time for another attempt at resolution considering that next year will be an election year in Croatia, Jansa told the press on Monday.
Commenting on the appeal of President Janez Drnovsek and his Croatian counterpart Stipe Mesic that the governments should tackle the open issues, Jansa said that they had both held offices where they could have resolved these issues, but they failed to do it.
The consequences of a possible delay in the expansion of the Schengen passport-free area scheduled for October 2007 for new EU members should not be too serious, PM Janez Jansa commented on an announcement that a delay was likely in Schengen expansion that was voiced during Monday's meeting of EU home and justice ministers. More »
Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Jansa labelled the Russian Chapel, lying by the road across the Vrsic mountain pass in NW Slovenia, a symbol of Slovenian-Russian friendship, as he addressed the central ceremony marking 90 years of the chapel on Sunday. More »
Prime Minister Janez Jansa has said that international arbitration on open issues with Croatia was not a realistic option at this point although Slovenia was preparing for all possible scenarios. More »
The government adopted a bill on public-private partnerships on Thursday in order to speed up investment in public projects. The bill obligates all contracting parties to examine the feasibility of public-private partnership for projects above a certain value, Finance Minister Andrej Bajuk said. More »
The cabinet adopted guidelines for the privatisation of companies in the energy sector at Thursday's session. Before launching the privatisation process, the government intends to ensure that there is competition in the sector, which is why a competitor to power producer HSE is being established. More »
The government on Thursday adopted a programme for the sale of stakes in companies that are directly owned by the state or held by the state-run Pension Fund Management (KAD), Restitution Fund (SOD) and the DSU Management and Consultancy Company. More »
The government approved EUR 20,000 in aid to Lebanon at its correspondence session on Monday. The funds were allocated from budgetary reserves following a UN and EU appeal. More »
The president of the parliamentary committee for EU affairs Anton Kokalj on Monday presented the work of the committee leading up to the parliamentary recess. He also talked about plans for the future, especially in light of Slovenia's presidency of the EU in the first half of 2008. More »
Iskra Avtoelektrika, a maker of electrical components for the car industry, on Thursday signed a five-year EUR 120m deal with German diesel engine manufacturer Deutz for the supply of starter motors and alternators. More »
Slovenia's largest retailer Mercator said on Friday that it intends to start offering mobile telecommunication services as of 1 August. The company plans to sell between 5,000 and 10,000 of its "M mobil" pre-paid packages by the end of the year. More »
An analysis of The Banker magazine, published by Financial Times group, showed that three Slovenian banks are among the world's 1000 biggest banks by Tier 1 capital in 2005. More »
The government has enough time to prepare for the demanding task of chairing over the EU in the first half of 2008, Prime Minister Janez Jansa has said at a meeting between Slovenian ministers and state secretaries with high-ranking officials from the UK, Denmark and Austria. More »
For smaller countries such as Slovenia and Austria EU presidency is quite a demanding task, yet at the same time a great opportunity for them to do something for the good of Europe and show their abilities and potentials to others, Austrian European Affairs State Secretary Hans Winkler has said. More »
The European Commission proposed on Tuesday that Slovenia be allowed to use a reduced rate of value added tax (VAT) for renovation and repair of private housing until the end of 2010. More »
Slovenians are the best informed about EU enlargement, suggests a Eurobarometer survey on attitudes to enlargement which was released on Friday. More »
Baroque frescoes by Italian painter Giulio Quaglio have been restored to old glory at the Church of St. Nicholas in Ljubljana. The renovated ceiling was unveiled on Tuesday, although the scaffolding will not be removed before mid-September, when the finishing touches on the 300-year-old masterpiece are completed. More »
Ljubljana, Maribor, Celje and Ptuj are thinking of running for the European Culture Capital in 2012 which will be shared between Slovenia and Portugal. However, the government will only choose one of the candidates. More »
The fire services have called off the state of emergency declared during a wildfire in the SW Slovenian Karst region after a summer rain shower drenched most of the affected areas on Tuesday. More »
British University of Leicester has produced the first ever world map of happiness, says the university's website. Slovenia made it to the 67th place among 178 countries included in the survey. More »
Slovenian marathon swimmer Joze Tanko is preparing to swim across the Gulf of Trieste in a protest against the planned construction of gas terminals there. More »
Taking advantage of the recently amended act on public procurement, the Health Ministry has decided to carry out the purchase of 18 operating tables for five hospitals despite appeals by two rejected bidders. More »