Slovenia News - August 2007

Slovenia News 29 August 2007

The Bled Strategic Forum 2007 started on Sunday 26 August at the renowned Slovene lakeside resort, bringing together the Prime Ministers of Croatia, Lithuania, Macedonia and Slovenia, the President of Georgia, the special envoy for the UN Martti Ahtisaari, and many other ministers, government officials, business executives and academics from 50 countries. The two-days conference, themed "European Union 2020 Enlarging and Integrating", focussed on the EU's further enlargement, the future of the bloc, global balance of power, climate change and energy security, issues that are closely related to priorities of Slovenia's presidency in the first half of 2008. In this issue, we also write about the important meeting between Prime Ministers Janez Jansa and Ivo Sanader, which discussed in Bled open issues between Croatia and Slovenia, and agreed in principle to resolve the outstanding border issue before the International Court of Justice in the Hague. Slovenia will open consulates in Belgium's Mechelen, Turkey's Antalya, the Mexican capital Ciudad de Mexico, and Japan's Kumamoto. The decision was taken at Thursday's government session. More » Economy Minister Andrej Vizjak and his Azeri colleague Ali Abbasov signed on Tuesday in Ljubljana an agreement on cooperation in the field of information and communication technology (ICT), the Economy Ministry has said. More » Economy Minister Andrej Vizjak discussed on Wednesday in Ljubljana economic cooperation between Japan and Slovenia with Masaji Matsuyama, Japanese parliamentary secretary for economy, trade and industry, the Economy Ministry said in a press release. More » Slovenia and Croatia have decided to try and resolve their border dispute at the International Court of Justice in The Hague. There is consensus in principle that the land as well as the sea border would be the subject of arbitration, Prime Minister Janez Jansa said after reaching the agreement with his Croatian counterpart Ivo Sanader on Sunday. More » Prime Minister Janez Jansa met his Lithuanian counterpart Gediminas Kirkilas in Bled on Saturday, when the pair agreed to intensify cooperation in the EU-related issues, in particular during Slovenia's spell as EU president next year. More » Prime Minister Janez Jansa held bilateral meetings with his Macedonian opposite number Nikola Gruevski and Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili on Sunday, Jansa's office said. More » Economy Minister Andrej Vizjak and his Croatian counterpart Branko Vukelic discussed on Tuesday open issues concerning the jointly-owned Krsko Nuclear Power Plant (NEK), agreeing that the issues be solved by mutual consent, in the spirit of good neighbourly relations and in accordance with EU standards. More » Relations between the EU and India, multilateral issues and bilateral relations topped the agenda as Foreign Ministry State Secretary Andrej Ster held talks on Tuesday with Secretary at the Indian Ministry of External Affairs, Nalin Surie. More » Today the Prime Minister of the Republic of Slovenia, Janez Janša, met the presidents of coalition and opposition parties, the head of the parliamentary group of unaffiliated MPs, and the representative of the Hungarian minority to continue a debate that began one week ago and to exchange views on resolving outstanding issues between the Republic of Slovenia and the Republic of Croatia. More » The government adopted on Thursday the programme on education of the unemployed for the 2007-2008 academic year. According to the Labour, the Family and Social Affairs Minister Marjeta Cotman, the programme is aimed at providing the unemployed with formal education and improving their employability. More » Slovenia's biggest bank, NLB, published a prospectus on a new share issue on Tuesday as part of a planned capital increase. The 325,733 new shares are being offered at EUR 307 per share, while the bank's share capital will increase by EUR 2.719m to EUR 66.831m. More » Aerodrom Ljubljana, the manager of Slovenia's largest airport, generated revenues to the tune of EUR 17.09m in the first half of 2007, 33% more than in the same period last year. More » A public call for bids for a 49.13% state stake in telco Telekom Slovenije will be published on 31 August in the Slovenian and European official journals and the Financial Times. The Economy Ministry explained on Tuesday that the reason for a week's delay in the planned publication of the tender was of technical nature. More » Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Food Iztok Jarc opened the 45th annual Agriculture and Food Fair in Gornja Radgona on Saturday, underscoring the need to make the sector more competitive and get ready for the challenges raised by the global market and climate change. More » Prime Minister Janez Jansa stressed Slovenia's commitment to EU enlargement when it takes over the rotating EU presidency in 2008. "Furthering the enlargement agenda will be one of the top tasks of the Slovenian presidency," he said in his address to a Bled Strategic Forum conference on Sunday. More » Priorities of Slovenia's stint at the helm of the EU and cooperation topped bilateral meetings that Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel held on Sunday at the sidelines of the second annual conference of the Strategic Forum Bled, the Foreign Ministry said. More » The solution of the Kosovo issue is essential to the future of the EU, a panel on a vision for Europe at the Bled Strategic Forum conference concluded on Sunday. This issue is not impossible to resolve, but it will require a single EU voice, Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski said. More » Cooperation between the port of Koper and Polish North Sea ports, and an extension of the 6th trans-European transport corridor to Slovenia, topped the agenda as Transport Minister Janez Bozic held talks on Tuesday with his Polish counterpart Jerzy Polaczek. More » The Gorenjsko region will host the 11th European Masters Championships in swimming, diving, open water and synchronised swimming between 28 August and 2 September in what will be the biggest sporting event in Slovenia so far. As many as 3,800 swimmers from 32 countries will take part, 80 among them from Slovenia. More » Slovenia's Primoz Kozmus won silver in hammer throw at the 11th World Championships in Athletics in Osaka on Monday in what is the best outdoor result for Slovenia ever. More » Travel company JTB Business World Tokyo Corp and the Slovenian Tourist Board signed on Tuesday a contract on cooperation in PR activities, aimed at increasing the number of Japanese tourists visiting Slovenia. More » Interior Minister Dragutin Mate and his Italian counterpart Giuliano Amato signed an agreement on cross-border police cooperation in Ljubljana on Monday in what Mate described as an "upgrade of all agreements so far". More » Schedule of Events for 29 August - 2 September More »

Slovenia News 21 August 2007

The heads of parliamentary groups met Prime Minister Janez Jansa on Friday, 17 August, and expressed their support to the cabinet in its future plans to seek a solution to open issues with Croatia. The reunification of the region of Prekmurje with the motherland was also celebrated on that day, while Slovenian Bishops broached numerous topical issues at holy masses celebrating Assumption Day on Wednesday, 15 August. Marketing communications expert Miro Kline expects the campaign ahead of the autumn presidential election to be tough because the result of the vote will affect the outcome of the general election next year. Kline, a professor at the Ljubljana Faculty of Social Sciences, has also told STA that the run-off, which public opinion polls indicate will be fought between Lojze Peterle and Danilo Tuerk, will be very close. More » Minister of the Environment and Spatial Planning Janez Podobnik praised the people of Prekmurje for their love of Slovenia in his speech at Friday's ceremony to commemorate the region's reunification with the homeland in 1919. He promised that the perseverance of the region, which has since independence struggled to keep pace with the rest of the country, would pay off with a "development spurt". More » Slovenian parties agreed that the government should keep up efforts for solving open issues with Croatia at a bipartisan meeting held by Prime Minister Janez Jansa on Friday dedicated to discussing the strategy for tackling open issues with the southern neighbour. More » The registered unemployment rate in June stood at 7.5%, a drop of 0.2 percentage points over the month before. According to the National Statistics Office, the official number of unemployed persons fell 18.1% on last June. More » Prime Minister Janez Jansa, accompanied by two ministers, met on Monday Hartmut Mehdorn, chairman of German rail operator Deutsche Bahn (DB), for talks on cooperation between DB and Slovenian logistics and transport companies. More » Special masses have been held around Slovenia on Wednesday to mark the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, one of the biggest holidays on the Church calendar and a national holiday in Slovenia since 1992. In their sermons, Slovenian bishops underscored the dangers of atheism and unbridled opulence for Slovenian and European society and broached a number of topical issues, including post-World War II summary killings and plans for a gaming resort in western Slovenia. More » Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Food Iztok Jarc visited Braslovce in mid northeast on Monday in the aftermath of a devastating hailstorm, which first estimates show caused more than four million euros in damage. The minister expressed solidarity with the hop producers there, whose produce was annihilated. More » Schedule of Events for 21-26 August More »

Slovenia News 14 August 2007

Slovenia's relations with Croatia continued to make headlines over the past week, as the PM's office announced on Tuesday the PM would be holding a bipartisan meeting with deputy group leaders on 17 August. Media attention also focused on the discovery of a mass grave near Maribor, which is thought to hold the remains of over 15,000 victims of Communist reprisal after World War II. In business news, the Economy Ministry announced the call for bids to the privatisation of near half of telco Telekom Slovenije would be published at the end of the month. A historian heading the probing work at a mass grave near Slovenia's second-largest city, Maribor, confirmed reports that it was one of the biggest if not the biggest post-World War II mass grave in Slovenia. More » Prime Minister Janez Jansa is scheduled to meet heads of all parliamentary groups on 17 August to consult them over Croatia's response to Slovenia's latest initiative in the efforts to resolve issues dividing the countries. More » Two contingents of Slovenian troops are ready to replace their colleagues in Kosovo and Afghanistan. The ceremony prior to their departure was held in the Franc Rozman Stane barracks in Ljubljana on Friday and the soldiers were assessed as well trained. More » The Virus, a light airplane model produced by Slovenia's Pipistrel, won on Saturday a NASA award worth US$ 100,000 for being the closest of the four competitors to a prototype for so-called air cars, the cnet website wrote on Sunday. More » US Ambassador to Slovenia Thomas Robertson visited Slovenian soldiers taking part in the KFOR mission in the Serbian province of Kosovo on Monday. Robertson stressed the important role played by the Slovenia contingent, which has managed to gain trust of both Serbs and Albanians in the province, the Defence Ministry said on Tuesday. More » The government Institute for Macroeconomic Analysis and Development (IMAD) said on Wednesday Slovenia economy stands to grow at between 4% and 5% until the current EU budget period runs out in 2013, while two different scenarios are possible between 2013 and 2030. More » A public call for bids for a 49.13% state stake in Slovenia's national telco is expected to be published on 24 August, envisaging three options in which the stake can be sold. More » A survey by business daily Finance of the people's preferences for presidential candidates has found that the highest income earners prefer presidential hopeful Mitja Gaspari, while the lowest income earners are most inclined to Danilo Tuerk. Lojze Peterle leads the rural vote while most of Zmago Jelincic's support is from men. More » Slovenia is one of eight EU member states that have already transposed the directive which smooths entry of third-country researchers into the 27-nation bloc. All member states are obliged to introduce visas for non-EU nationals coming to carry out a research project for more than three months by October 2007. More » "New Architecture in Slovenia", a book presenting modern Slovenian architecture, has been launched by the international "SpringerWienNewYork" publishing house. The book, compiled by acclaimed architect Matevz Celik, presents 45 interesting buildings built by 30 architects during the past decade in Slovenia. More » The Slovenian Tourist Board (STO) is participating in the three-day International Trade Fair for Coach Travel and Tourism, which opened in Cologne on Tuesday, with a presentation featuring Slovenian cities. More » Singers from all over Europe will flock to Ljubljana between 12 and 19 August to participate in the Europa Cantat festival, which will feature workshops for mixed choirs, individual singers and small vocal groups. More » A book dedicated to Slovenia's great architect Joze Plecnik in Slovenian and its translations into Italian and English were published by the Ljubljana-based Cankarjeva Zalozba publishing house at the end of July to mark the 50th anniversary of his death. More » The 27th Biennial of Graphic Arts (MGB) will get underway on 6 September, while six accompanying events will open ahead of the main exhibitions. One of them will be a show of works on paper by New York-based artist Thomas Nozkowski, which will open on Monday at Mestna galerija 2 in Ljubljana. More » The hop harvest began last weekend in eastern Slovenia, some two weeks earlier than usual. The hop plants have ripened and are ready to be picked, Darko Simoncic, the director of the Slovenian Institute for Hop Research and Brewing said. More » The drought and warm temperatures in recent months have forced Slovenia's winegrowers to start preparing for the grape harvest earlier than usual. The first winegrowers are set to begin the harvest in about a week's time, expecting a quality vintage, albeit in smaller quantities than usual. More » Besides the usual crowds of tourists that flock the streets of Ljubljana in the summer, this year the capital has been overrun with construction workers, as after years of stagnation, the city centre is finally getting a much-needed facelift. More » A member of the Slovenian Scout Association is the oldest among more than 42,000 participants in the 2007 World Scout Jamboree, a gathering of scouts from all over the world, which is to wrap up in Britain's Chelmsford on Wednesday. More » A Slovenian emigrant association is once again staging a summer camp for children of Slovenian emigrants. Teenagers included in the programme get to stay in the Debeli rtic youth camp on the Slovenian coast, where they learn about the land of their ancestors. More » Schedule of Events for 14-19 August More »

Slovenia News 7 August 2007

The latest Slovenian initiative for resolving open issues between Slovenia and Croatia continued to make headlines last week, high expectations were however shattered on Thursday when Croatia proposed a different mediator than put forward by Slovenia. The world of business was meanwhile marked above all by the state increasing its grip on spa operator Terme Catez and upbeat Q1 results for pharma company Krka. The Italian government on Friday endorsed a list of 32 municipalities where bilinguality must be observed under the 2001 Slovenian minority act. The decision has already been hailed by the Slovenian Foreign Ministry, which hopes the act will now be fully implemented. More » The Croatian government on Thursday responded to Slovenia's proposal regarding the resolution of open issues, its spokesperson confirmed for STA. Ratko Macek specified that the Croatian government believed the institution most competent to deal with the border dispute now would be the Tribunal for the Law of the Sea in Hamburg. More » The Croatian proposal that the border dispute between the two countries be taken to the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea in Hamburg is not acceptable for Slovenia, Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel told the press on Friday. Rupel said in Portoroz that Croatia's response to the Slovenian initiative for solving open issues, including the border, allowed room for further talks, which is why Slovenia would propose a round of intense talks to be held this month. More » The Defence Ministry has awarded EUR 8.55m in subsidies to 18 companies selected in a public call encouraging development of technologies for the national security system. More » Slovenia ranks third among 31 European countries included in a rating evaluating investment risks for foreign investors from a human resource perspective conducted by the Federation of European Employers (FedEE). More » The European Commission will launch next year an information network that will offer fast and effectively the small and medium-sized enterprises as much information as possible, Martina Orsulova of the European Commission Directorate-General for Enterprise and Industry said on Thursday. More » The AGM of Terme Catez, which lasted well into the night on Tuesday, saw the spa operator's shareholders backing the proposal by the state-run KAD fund that the company's supervisory board for the coming four years not include a representative of the company's biggest owner, publishing house DZS. More » The European Commission has established in its survey on the implementation of the roaming regulation that cuts charges for cross-border calls in the EU that Simobil, one of Slovenia's two main mobile operators, has notified users about the new euro tariffs on time, whereas Tusmobil, the smallest operator, did so a bit too late. More » The sixth annual Sanje (Dreams) festival offers music, literature, theatre, photography and science under the starts in Ljubljana throughout August. The event opened at Zvezda Park with an improv act "Seks med listi" (Sex Between Paper Sheets), followed by a jazz-fusion concert by Electric Violet. More » Over 2,000 Slovenians living in Slovenia and abroad gathered on Sunday for the 19th traditional pilgrimage to Monte Santo di Lussari (Svete Visarje) near the border between Slovenia, Austria and Italy. More » On 4 May 80 years passed since the death of Jakob Aljaz, a priest and dedicated mountaineer who bought 112 years ago from the local authorities the peak of Slovenia's highest mountain, Triglav. The peak became the symbol of the Slovenian nation and Aljaz was remembered on Saturday in a special ceremony held just bellow the peak. More » A ceremony was held at Slovenia's highest-lying mountain hostel, Kredarica, just under the peak of Slovenia's highest mountain, Triglav, on Saturday to remember Slovenian mountaineer Jakob Aljaz. The keynote speakers at the event were Parliament Speaker France Cukjati and Austrian Ambassador to Slovenia Valentin Inzko, while other officials were also on hand, including Prime Minister Janez Jansa and his partner Urska Bacovnik. More » On Sunday, Slovenia joined a growing number of EU countries with tough anti-smoking legislation as a new law entered into force, banning smoking in indoor public and work places. More » The outbreak of foot and mouth disease in Great Britain does not pose a direct risk to Slovenia, the Slovenian Veterinary Administration (VURS) said on Monday. According to VURS, no hooved animals have been imported from Britain in the period that could pose a risk for transmission of the disease. More » Schedule of Events for 7-12 August More »

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