Slovenia News 13 May 2008

At the Conference of European Affairs Committees and European Parliament (COSAC), held in Slovenia on 7 May, Prime Minister Jansa said the EU success in the coming 50 years will be measured by how successfully the EU takes on key global challenges. Addressing at Brdo pri Kranju representatives of parliaments from EU members and candidate states, the current president of the EU Council highlighted the preservation of the environment, the fight against world poverty, and peace and security as the main global challenges. In this edition of Slovenia News we also write about the WDR Europa Forum. The leaders of the main EU institutions, assembled in Ljubljana on 8 May, agreed that the fight against climate change, the Lisbon Treaty and intercultural dialogue are EU's main achievements over the past year, but these are also areas where the 27-member bloc faces the biggest challenges. Foreign Ministry State Secretary Andrej Ster and Bosnian Ambassador to Slovenia Izmir Talic exchanged on Monday documents on the ratification of the agreement on social insurance between Slovenia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, which is to enter into force on 1 July. More » Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel met in Strasbourg on Wednesday Georgian Deputy Prime Minister Giorgi Baramidze. The officials discussed the situation in Georgia, which has been rather tense recently. More » Labour, Family and Social Affairs Minister Marjeta Cotman and Croatian Minister of Families, Veterans' Affairs and Intergenerational Solidarity Jadranka Kosor signed on Monday a reciprocal agreement on war graves. "We have added a piece into the mosaic called historical truth," said Kosor. More » The Prime Minister of the Republic of Slovenia and President of the European Council, Janez Jansa, today held a meeting with the Chairman of the 11th National Committee of the People’s Political Consultative Conference of the People’s Republic of China, Jia Qinglin. More » Slovenian National Assembly Speaker France Cukjati and his Austrian counterpart Barbara Prammer met for a second time in two days on Saturday, agreeing that national parliaments should better define their role in cooperation with the European Parliament. More » The Slovenian Public Agency for Entrepreneurship and Foreign Investment (JAPTI) has been awarded by the World Finance magazine as the most promising foreign direct investment (FDI) location 2008-2009 in Central and Eastern Europe, JAPTI said on Monday. More » The role of innovation in improving energy efficiency and fighting climate change topped the agenda as the European Patent Forum kicked off on Tuesday, featuring over 350 innovators, intellectual property experts and government representatives. More » Samo Hribar Milic, the chief exec of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GZS), has called for more Chinese investment in Slovenia, especially such with a higher value added. Numerous opportunities for cooperation are still open, Hribar Milic told a visiting Chinese economic delegation on Monday. More » The government adopted on Thursday the supplementary 2008 budget bill, cutting expenditure by almost EUR 50m, while revenues are projected to grow by EUR 250m. This will change the EUR 230m budget deficit, planned for 2008, into a EUR 69.4m surplus. More » As many as 59% of Slovenians used the internet in 2007, or 942,500 people aged between 16 and 75. This puts the country on the average among EU member states. More » EU Science and Research Commissioner Janez Potocnik called on EU member states on Thursday to bolster their share of R&D spending. Only by becoming a knowledge-based society can Europe maintain its welfare model, Potocnik said at the close of a COSAC meeting at Brdo pri Kranju. More » Innovations in antiviral treatment, car manufacturing, eye examination and robotic surgery were honoured on Tuesday as top inventors received European Inventor of the Year Award for 2008 at the European Patent Forum, which is underway in Ljubljana. More » The Sostanj coal-fired power plant connected its first gas unit to the power grid on Friday, a 42 Megawatt (MW) project that will improve the environmental footprint of Slovenia's largest power plant. Economy Minister Andrej Vizjak and Health Minister Zofija Mazej Kukovic applauded the achievement. More » While peace and prosperity formed the basis on which the success of the EU was measured in its first 50 years, the coming 50 years will be measured by how successfully the EU takes on key global challenges, Prime Minister Janez Jansa told the Conference of European Affairs Committees and European Parliament (COSAC) on Wednesday. More » The leaders of the main EU institutions see the fight against climate change, the Lisbon Treaty and intercultural dialogue as the EU's main achievements over the past year, but they told the WDR Europa Forum on Thursday that these were also areas where the 27-member bloc faces the biggest challenges. More » Prime Minister Janez Jansa and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso visited on Thursday the Ljubljana Technology Park, with Jansa saying that the facility demonstrated Slovenia's desire to become an even more modern and development-oriented country. More » Mayors and other representatives of 18 European capitals, meeting for a two-day conference in Slovenia's capital, adopted on Thursday the Ljubljana Declaration on the relationship between states and their capital cities. They also signed a declaration on the role of capitals in intercultural dialogue. More » The importance of the photo of the incumbent Prime Minister Janez Jansa's arrest for the democratisation of Slovenia was stressed at the opening of an exhibition marking the 20th anniversary of the establishment of the Human Rights Committee, one of the cornerstones of democratisation efforts in the then Socialist Republic of Slovenia. More » The Franja WW II hospital is one of the most noble Slovenian symbols and its destruction last year was a great tragedy, President Danilo Tuerk told STA in Sezana on Thursday, as he attended a fund-raiser for the reconstruction of this monument. More » A new private higher education institution, the Academy for Visual Arts (AVA), is to open in Ljubljana in response to what its founders call a lack of art studies in Slovenia. With classes starting in October, a year at the academy will cost prospective students from EUR 2,000 to EUR 3,000, the founders told the press on Monday. More » Palestinian universities Birzeit and An-Najah signed an agreement during the visit of a Slovenian delegation on the West Bank on Monday to cooperate in the creation of a Euro-Mediterranean University (EMUNI) in Slovenia. More » The author of a book on the Roma believes that stigmatisation is the main obstacle to intercultural dialogue. "Speaking up in public as a representative of an ethnic community should be a positive value, it should not put the speaker in danger of being stigmatised," Vera Klopcic told Wednesday's panel on intercultural dialogue. More » As many as 30,000 people took part in a 35-long hike around Ljubljana on Saturday to remember the liberation of the capital 63 years ago. The hike follows the track of the barbed wire which enclosed the city during World War II. More » Slovenian gymnast Mitja Petkovsek won gold on the parallel bars at the the European Gymnastics Championships in Lausanne on Sunday with a 16.025 point performance. He defended his 2007 title from Amsterdam and took third consecutive European gold. Aljaz Pegan meanwhile came third on the high bar with 15.3 points. More » Calendar of Events for 13 - 18 May More »

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