What follows is a weekly review of events involving Slovenia, as prepared by the STA.

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This summary is provided by the STA:

Annual inflation rate hits 11%

LJUBLJANA - Slovenia's annual inflation rate accelerated to 11% in July, up 0.6 percentage points from the month before, driven mostly by high prices of petroleum products, data from the Statistics Office shows. It is the highest annual inflation rate since August 1995. Higher prices of petroleum products contributed as much as 2.1 percentage points to the annual inflation rate as well as half a point to the monthly inflation rate of 1%. Another 2 percentage points were added to inflation by a 13.5% hike in food prices, and a 30.4% increase in electricity prices contributed 1.1 points. Measured with the harmonised index of consumer prices, an EU gauge, the annual growth of consumer prices was 11.7% and the monthly growth was 0.9%.

Govt measures to affect inflation in September, PM says

LJUBLJANA - Government measures designed to mitigate the effects of rising cost of living should start showing their effect on inflation in September, Prime Minister Robert Golob commented on Friday, after the Statistics Office said the country's annual inflation rate accelerated to 11% in July. Golob said that inflation would likely be even higher in August, adding that the government hoped to keep inflation at 10% or lower.

Court blocks Mokrice hydropower plant project

LJUBLJANA - The Administrative Court decreed that the planned Mokrice hydropower station on the river Sava cannot get a building permit until it has ruled on legal action brought against the project by the Slovenian Native Fish Society. Announcing the decision, the society said it was important because it blocked the investors' plan to obtain a partial building permit from the Ministry and Spatial Planning and start with the plant's construction despite their legal challenge. Mokrice, located near the border with Croatia, is the last hydro plant to be built on the lower Sava, four having already been completed as part of a project started 16 years ago. Under initial plans the Mokrice plant was slated for completion as early as 2018.

Govt to strengthen cooperation with NGOs

LJUBLJANA - PM Robert Golob and Public Administration Minister Sanja Ajanović Hovnik met with representatives of some dozen NGOs for the second time to discuss current issues. The government is keen to include NGOs into the decision-making process, Golob said after the meeting. Representatives of some NGOs expressed their discontent with the government's decision not to include them in discussions on measures aimed at reducing the cost of living amidst price hikes.

Golob calls serial referendum initiatives abuse of law

LJUBLJANA - Prime Minister Robert Golob has responded to the third referendum initiative brought by the biggest opposition party by arguing referendum legislation is being abused to block the executive and legislative branches of power. "Such tactics can have a counterproductive effect, especially in the run-up to elections," Golob said on Friday, a day after the Democrats (SDS) filed their third referendum initiative. He said the referenda would be held on the same day, regardless of how many more were to be called, because they would not let one party cause excessive costs to the state through its ill-judged policies.

Minister: High time politics no longer played a role in judge appointments

Ljubljana, 29 July - Justice Minister Dominika Švarc Pipan said in an interview for the STA she will not approach changes in the judiciary haphazardly, but wants to see well-thought-out solutions under a broad consensus, while noting it was high time politics no longer played a role in judicial appointment procedures. The minister would like to see a broad consensus among experts and politicians, as well as politics retreating from the appointment of judges, but she does not support hasty or reckless solutions in reforming the judicial network. Lengthy court proceedings are another bane of Slovenia's judiciary, whose reputation is being damaged. The minister believes that the reasons for this are many and cannot be attributed to judges alone.

Minority seeks permanent seat in Italian parliament

LJUBNO OB SAVINJI - Slovenian minority officials pledged to work to secure a permanent seat for the minority in the Italian parliament as the Office for Slovenians Abroad hosted a debate on the issue today. This comes amid concerns that the Slovenian minority in Italy could end up without its representative in the Italian parliament following the 25 September snap election. The election will be held after the electoral law has been amended to reduce the number of seats in both houses of parliament, including from the Friuli Venezia Giulia region, where most ethnic Slovenians live.

Threats reason for ombudsman getting security protection

LJUBLJANA - The government has included the country's human rights ombudsman among officials who are provided with security protection by the police. The ombudsman had so far not been listed in the police security protection regulation, but his office suggested a while ago the Interior Ministry consider including the ombudsman as one of the officials eligible for level 4 of security protection. The office "is an independent body, ranked seventh in the diplomatic hierarchy, whose position is quite similar to that of the president of the Constitutional Court," the office told the STA. The ombudsman's office sought the security also because Ombudsman Peter Svetina has often been target of threats over the past two years.

Survey unemployment rate slightly down to 3.8% in June

LJUBLJANA - Slovenia's ILO-compatible survey unemployment rate was at 3.8% in June, down by 0.1 of a percentage point on May and 0.6 of a percentage point year-on-year, the Statistics Office reported on Friday. Its estimates show there were some 39,000 unemployed people in Slovenia last month. The share of men among the unemployed aged 15-74 in June equalled that of women. The survey unemployment rate stood at 3.5% for men and 4.2% for women, dropping by 0.2 of a percentage point for the former.

Daily coronavirus count down 8% week-on-week, two patients die

LJUBLJANA - A total of 1,484 new coronavirus cases were recorded in Slovenia on Thursday in what is an decrease of almost 8% compared to the same day a week ago. Two patients with Covid-19 died yesterday, shows data from the Health Ministry. The number of patients hospitalised for Covid-19 as their primary condition is exactly 100, of whom 14 are in intensive care, which is 22 and six more on a weekly basis, respectively. Data from the National Institute of Public Health puts the 7-day average of new daily cases to 1,645, down by 18 over the day before, while the 14-incidence rate per 100,000 people dropped by five to 1,076.

Mediana poll shows people not very concerned about coronavirus

LJUBLJANA - A July opinion poll by Mediana has found that concern among residents of Slovenia is not growing despite an increase in the number of newly-detected coronavirus infections. Around 39% of the respondents are worried about the Covid-19 epidemic in July, which is actually 0.7 of a percentage point less than in June. Some 28% of the people polled think that other countries are coping with Covid better than Slovenia. While the difference compared to June is not significant, the proportion of respondents with such an opinion has been declining since March (39%). The proportion of respondents who say that the Covid-19 epidemic has helped them appreciate more what they have has been declining since May, when it stood at 52%, compared to 47% in the July poll.

Slovenia confirms 35 monkeypox cases so far

LJUBLJANA - A total of 35 cases of monkeypox have so far been confirmed in Slovenia since the first case was reported in late May, according to the National Institute of Public Health. The institute's data shows just over one third of the cases were individuals who got infected abroad - in Spain, Italy and Bosnia-Herzegovina - and a good third got infected in Slovenia. The source of infection for the other cases could not have been determined. The first case in Slovenia was confirmed on 24 May in a man who returned from the Canary Islands, with the second case confirmed a day later in a person who had been to Spain as well.

Some fish species endangered due to low water levels, heat

LJUBLJANA - Fish in Slovenian rivers are generally doing well, but certain species are highly affected by low water levels and overheating and some areas have seen fish kills in recent weeks. Water levels are extremely low in the Primorska and Notranjska regions, including Lake Cerknica, as well as in the Savinja and most small tributaries of large rivers. Particularly threatened are species of the Salmonidae family, such as brown trout, grayling and Danube salmon, as well as certain warm-blooded species in areas where there is a lack of water or oxygen, the Slovenian Fishermen's Association has told the STA.

Industrial fire in Kranj causes EUR 100,000 in damage

KRANJ - A fire that broke out at the Blisk foundry on the outskirts of Kranj on Thursday evening has caused damage worth EUR 100,000 according to a police estimate, while nobody was injured. Kranj police said today that no impact on the environment could be identified, while an environmental NGO urged a thorough investigation. The Kranj Police Department said in a press release the cause of the fire appeared to be a glitch in the electrical wiring.

All three Slovenian clubs out of UEFA Europa Conference League

LJUBLJANA - It was a devastating Thursday evening for Slovenian clubs in the UEFA Europa Conference League, the third-tier European club football competition, as Olimpija, Koper and Mura were all eliminated in the second qualifying round by their respective opponents. The national champions Maribor thus remain the only Slovenian representative in the European competitions even though they were eliminated from the Champions League qualifying this week by FC Sheriff of Moldova. Maribor were relegated to the third qualifying round of the second-tier UEFA Europa League, where they will play HJK Helsinki on 4 and 11 August.

Double exhibition opening at Maribor Art Gallery

MARIBOR - A double exhibition will open today at the Maribor Art Gallery (UGM) Studio. A cross-generational selection of artists mainly from Central Europe will be showcased on the ground floor, while on the lower ground floor Roma artist Mara Oláh from Hungary will be presented. The international group exhibition dubbed An Eclectic Attempt to Complete the Torso in My Head showcases representations of the body through different media, somewhere in-between folklore punk and new materialism. The lower ground floor is meanwhile dedicated to a single artist - the first solo exhibition of Omara (Mara Oláh) in Slovenia.

STA, 29 July 2022 - Fish in Slovenian rivers are generally doing well, but certain species are highly affected by low water levels and overheating and some areas have seen fish kills in recent weeks. Water levels are extremely low in the Primorska and Notranjska regions, including Lake Cerknica, as well as in the Savinja and most small tributaries of large rivers.

Particularly threatened are species of the Salmonidae family, such as brown trout, grayling and Danube salmon, as well as certain warm-blooded species in areas where there is a lack of water or oxygen, the Slovenian Fishermen's Association has told the STA.

The last three summers have been somehow manageable in terms of water levels and similar conditions were seen in 2017 but not for such a long period as this year.

The federation thus banned angling clubs from organising competitions and recommended them to ban fishing in the most affected rivers.

It would also like activities such as swimming or other sport activities in rivers to be banned because this "puts even more pressure on the fish".

The association would also like to see the Agriculture Ministry as the regulator in charge of introducing obligatory measures play a more active role.

"We would like supervisory bodies, such as inspection services, to be more active. It is also totally unacceptable that watercourses are being encroached on."

Here the association criticised a plan to pump water out of the Rižana river to fill the water supply system reservoirs as the coast has been hit by the worst drought in 35 years.

It believes this would "lower the water level below the ecologically permissible and acceptable flow. This simply means that some people don't care about fish."

The association monitors the situation through the fisheries service and staff at angling clubs, also cooperating with the country's public Fisheries Research Institute.

On a more positive note, Slovenia has made progress in terms of cleanness of waters, with a number of rivers being in the first quality class and most of the remaining ones in the second quality class.

Slovenia also has pristine nature, especially in the areas of the Alpine rivers, which attracts fishing tourists, the association said, adding that fish stock is also good.

What worries the fishermen is a constant and reckless encroachment on watercourses, the cutting of riparian vegetation and the warming of the water during the summer months, which forces the grayling and trout to move upstream, which means that certain fish species are disappearing in certain areas.

Slovenia remains an attractive destination for foreign fishermen, but the association is worried about the impact global warming will have on rivers and lakes and on fishing tourism.

It has been also pushing against regulation of watercourses and for considering bringing rivers back to their original state, giving them space and planting a lot of vegetation along their banks to return the fish to their natural habitat and help them survive.

STA, 28 July 2022 - The wildfire that raged across Kras in the past two weeks proved to be extraordinarily challenging because the area is littered with thousands of explosive devices from World War I, which may detonate when subjected to extreme heat. Over 500 devices have gone off during the fire which has since been extinguished, but the area remains dangerous.

Experts estimate that the site of the Isonzo Front in World War I remains littered with about 70 kilos of unexploded explosive ordnance (UXO) per square metre [sic].

The wildfire spread across a surface area of 3,500 hectares located on what used to be the Italian-Austrian border in the early 20th century and the site of many World War I battles between the two countries.

The fire detonated hundreds of devices, posing an extraordinary risk for thousands of firefighters who battled the blaze. "Luckily, the explosions took place where we predicted, in the zones we mapped out," Darko Zonjič, the commander of Slovenia's special UXO unit, told the STA.

"The most important thing was that firefighters followed our safety instructions, otherwise there could have been a catastrophe," he said, adding that there had been some "close calls", but luckily nobody had been hurt.

The UXO unit has only just started their work of removing the unexploded ordnance and found over 250 devices weighing a total of 1.4 tonnes. "But we are far from over. Only when the fire is extinguished completely and we will be able to access the burnt down areas, a realistic picture will begin to emerge."

Movement across burnt down areas becomes somewhat safer after the fire had been extinguished for over 48 hours. "But there are still hot spots where explosions can occur. Therefore we are warning that walking across fire sites is still dangerous."

The UXO unit members are continuing their inspection of outer edges of the burnt areas. The majority of ordnance they found so far were Italian and Austrian 75-millimetre cannon grenades, followed by Austrian 100-millimetre grenades.

"We have not yet found 150-millimetre grenades, but we expect to find them at the centre of the fire site under the Veliki Vrh peak. So far we have inspected only a fraction of the burnt area," Zonjič said.

Very big calibre UXO are mostly underground and will only detonate in case of fire, when temperature reaches about 300 degrees Celsius, he added.

Some of the grenades were found in heaps, likely piled together by metal collectors after the war. "They took brass of the grenades, having known already back then which were dangerous and which weren't.

"Mostly these are individual grenades which had not exploded after launch. If these missiles... are not moved they don't go off, that is why we haven't had an accident like this in a long time."

The missiles become dangerous during fires or when untrained individuals start playing with them. People are advised not to move UXO but report their location to the relevant services instead.

STA, 28 July 2022 - The government decided to reduce value added tax (VAT) on energy products for all users at Thursday's session, Finance Minister Klemen Boštjančič told a press conference. The reduced tax rate of 9.5% will apply for the heating season, from 1 September to 31 May next year.

The government proposes to reduce VAT on supplies of electricity, natural gas, firewood and district heating. These are being proposed in a bill on emergency VAT measure to mitigate rising energy prices, which is being put forward to parliament to be passed in emergency procedure.

"By temporarily reducing the VAT rate from 22% to 9.5%, the government is addressing the impact of energy price increases during the peak energy consumption period, the heating season. The lower rate applies to all consumers of these energy products, both households and commercial," the Government Communication Office said in a press release.

The lower VAT on electricity and natural gas adds to the measures already taken to regulate the prices of these energy products, but when it comes to firewood and district heating, the reduced VAT rate is the first such measure the government is taking to mitigate price hikes, Boštjančič said.

VAT reductions cannot be applied to heating oil due to a European directive, and the government has limited options for wood biomass, where it cannot regulate prices. "We hope that the reduction in this area will not translate into higher margins of traders," he noted.

In the next steps, the government will also address the regulation of heating oil and district heating prices.

The lower VAT will result in a roughly EUR 130 million shortfall in the state budget, some EUR 40 million less this year and EUR 90 million less next year. The positive impact on households is expected to be between a few hundred euros and more than a thousand euros during the heating season, according to the minister.

He also announced that the government is "very likely" to prepare a supplementary budget for this year. "It is no secret that both the expenditure and revenue sides will be quite different from those in the adopted budget," he said.

Changes to the existing budget will be prepared while adopting the 2023 and 2024 budgets, and discussions on these will start after 20 August.

Check the date at the top of the page, and you can find all the "morning headlines" stories here. You can also follow us on Facebook and get all the news in your feed.

This summary is provided by the STA:

STA, 27 July 2022 - A campaign has started to transport drinking water to the Slovenian coast, where restrictions have been introduced due to water shortages. The water is extracted from the Unica river, north of Postojna, and taken by trucks to a water works facility near Dekani. The project was launched at about the same time as the region finally got see some rainfall.

The water is being extracted as of Tuesday morning to water trucks of the Slovenian Armed Forces (SAF) and the firefighting service. It takes about two hours and a half for one such truck to take the water to the facility and return.

Five trucks have been secured by fire brigades, and four 10,000-litre tankers of the SAF, the authorities announced at a press conference at the site where the water is being extracted from the Unica, under the bridge in the village of Planina.

"Firefighters always want to help, even though we are looking back at a difficult week in Kras," said Franci Petek, the commander of the Firefighting Association of Slovenia, referring to the huge fire in western Slovenia that has recently been contained.

Darko But, the head of the Civil Protection and Disaster Relief Administration, added that the government had make it possible to hire private contractors with larger water trucks to help out in the effort.

But he noted that the extraction of the water by no means impacted the water supply for the nearby towns of Postojna and Pivka, while Martin Pregelj, the head of the the Rižana water utility noted that "it is a national project".

The measure to alleviate the water shortage in Slovenian Istria was confirmed by the government last Thursday, and will be in force until the end of August.

In the meantime, all restrictions remain in place. After the use of water for non-urgent purposes was banned and cuts for businesses was introduced, the total consumption decreased to 30,000 m3 a day, the local water utility said.

As the area has seen some rainfall in recent days, the utility has detected a slight rise in the level of the groundwater, but said it was not enough to revive the main natural spring of the Rižana river, which remains dry.

A total of 700 m3 of potable water was brought on Tuesday to the Cepki water works facility, and it has been estimated that under the current pace, the situation could be brought back to normal in ten days.

Some 20 litres of water per square metre fell on Tuesday in the nearby area of Brkini, and some of the water entered the Rižana system, while the water level in aquifers above the source of Rižana has also increased slightly.

While the main source is still dry, the Rižana flow at the downstream measuring point has increased to 115 litres per second, the water utility said, also noting that the consumption had also decreased compared to Monday figures.

STA, 28 July 2022 - The Solkan Hydropower Plant has been temporarily shut down due to extremely low flow of the Soča river caused by prolonged drought, its operator, Soške Elektrarne Nova Gorica, has announced. This is the first time the Solkan plant has been non-operational since 2003.

Currently, the average flow of the river in Solkan is so low that it does not allow for the turbines to operate safely, explained the hydropower company.

The ecologically acceptable flow is ensured by guiding the water over the gates of the dam and is equal to the natural inflow of the Soča river.

Up until Wednesday, a slightly higher-than-natural flow was ensured by emptying the reservoirs.

However, reservoir levels on the Soča have reached critical levels that no longer allow for them to be emptied, the company added.

Primorski Dnevnik meanwhile reported that Stefano Zannier, the agriculture minister of the bordering Friuli Venezia Giulia region in Italy had urged the Italian government to contact the Slovenian government to see whether it was possible to increase the river flow at the Solkan dam.

The newspaper of the Slovenian minority in Italy added that, according to the hydropower plant operator, this will most likely not be possible.

Right after the turbines at Solkan stopped, the water level of the Soča in Nova Gorica started dropping, most noticeably near Ločnik where larger amounts of water are redirected to the Fara channel.

As a result, fish have started gathering in large pools near Gorizia and Sant'Andrea in Italy, the minority newspaper reported.

The local land reclamation consortium also noted the diminished water flow on Wednesday, and acted accordingly, managing to prevent a massive fish die-off by reducing the flow to all irrigation canals and shutting down all irrigation devices.

The situation is also being closely monitored by the regional fisheries institute in Friuli Venezia Giulia. It has also ensured that fish from the driest parts of the Soča river were transferred to safety, Primorski Dnevnik noted.

The Slovenian newspaper Primorske Novice also reported that the flow on the part of the Soča waterbed between Savogna and Sagrado, south-west of Gorizia had completely stopped in what is an exceptionally rare occurrence.

The 5-kilometre strip now only has pools of waters where fish are seeking refuge, and a similar situation has developed at the confluence of the Soča and Vipava rivers, the newspaper notes.

The average flow of the Soča in the first half of the year was 39 cubic metres per second, half the usual.

The power utility Holding Slovenske Elektrarne (HSE) said that SENG had realised only 54% of the planned output for the first half of the year, and that the situation was similar when it comes to the power plants on the Drava and Sava rivers.

Compared to the five-year average, electricity production is down by 31% on the Drava, by 45% on the Soča, and by 39% on the lower section of the Sava.

HSE is well-equipped to deal with dry spells, the company told the STA, adding that the plan was to deal with energy shortages by acquiring electricity on foreign markets and restructuring production in their hydropower plants.

However, due to the instability of the energy market, the drought has had a negative impact on HSE's operations.

STA, 27 July 2022 - Foreign Minister Tanja Fajon travelled to Kyiv on Wednesday, meeting with her Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitchko and investment office head Sergiy Tsivkach. She promised Slovenia's support in the future, both in facing the consequences of war and efforts to join the EU.

She expressed support and solidarity with Ukraine and also talked about aid provided by Slovenia so far and learnt about Ukraine's aid needs.

"Slovenia remains a friend and supporter of Ukraine and its residents who have shown great courage," Fajon was quoted as saying by the Foreign Ministry on Twitter. She again condemned Russian aggression on Ukraine.

She presented to Kuleba the scope of humanitarian aid provided by Slovenia, which totals EUR 8.8 million, together with contributions donated by NGOs. Since the start of the war, Slovenia's government has contributed EUR 3.2 million. The country has become a refuge for many refugees and has taken in 20 orphans from Luhansk.

Slovenian NGOs have provided EUR 5.5 million in aid to Ukraine and Ukrainian refugees in Slovenia, a press release from the Foreign Ministry said.

"We talked about concrete humanitarian aid projects, such as demining and rehabilitation of the wounded, fields in which Slovenian experts can help," Fajon was quoted in the press release. During her visit, she also signed a memorandum on cyber security with Ukraine.

Prime Minister Shmyhal thanked Slovenia for the humanitarian aid it provided, while Fajon told him Slovenian companies were interested in helping to rebuild Ukraine after the war.

She also met the Kyiv mayor, saying he was very motivated and had great faith in the capital's residents. They talked about the need to end the war and Kyiv getting back to normal life.

The foreign minister also visited Irpin, which suffered heavy attacks from the Russian forces. Alongside Kuleba, she laid a wreath to honour the victims of war in the Donbas region, the ministry also tweeted.

She condemned killings of civilians in the strongest of terms, saying these were violations of humanitarian law and human rights, also underlining that the perpetrators must not go unpunished.

STA, 27 July 2022 - The biggest wildfire in Slovenia's history spread across 3,500 hectares over the course of 12 days. Efforts to put it out involved over 12,500 firefighters and 2,500 members of support services, such as civil protection, police and military force, medics, explosives experts and air support crews, among others, an initial report shows.

The Forest Service estimates that the fire destroyed some 2,700 hectares of forest. Roughly half of that was pine forest and the other half was deciduous forest, says an interim report by the Administration for Civil Protection and Disaster Relief, which the government is to discuss tomorrow.

According to the report, more than 12,500 firefighters took part in the firefighting operation between 19 and 26 July, using nearly 3,000 fire engines and other vehicles.

Some 2,500 members of support services also took part, including civil protection units, the police and military forces, emergency medical teams, the Red Cross, the unit for unexploded ordnance, air support crews, rapid response crews, Forest Service staff, Slovenian State Forests teams and volunteers. Exact figures are still being updated.

Due to the large number of firefighters, the military medical unit was also sent to the site. In total, 62 injuries were recorded in the 12 days of firefighting, none of them serious.

International air support was of extraordinary importance, due to risk posed by unexploded ordnance from World War I scattered across the area.

Nine helicopters, five air planes and firefighting units from Austria, Croatia, Italy, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia and Serbia helped out based on the EU Civil Protection Mechanism and bilateral agreements. Moreover, help was offered by Sweden in the form of two air planes.

Unexploded ordnance made the effort to put out the blaze even harder and very dangerous, demanding the constant presence of the unexploded ordnance unit. Every day, six to eight members of the unit were present at the site, steering the firefighting and removing the ordnance found.

It is estimated that the fire caused more than 500 detonations. By Tuesday, the unit removed 230 explosive devices weighing a total of 1,300 kilograms.

To get a better overview of the fire, the area was mapped by the Copernicus Emergency Management Service as of 21 July.

Apart from Slovenian president, prime minister, defence minister and other officials, the site was also visited by European Commissioner for Crisis Management Janez Lenarčič and Serbian Interior Minister Aleksander Vulin.

The table below shows information about aid received through the EU Civil Protection Mechanism:

Country      Duration       	      Type          Estimated water
        quantity
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Austria     (20-24 July)     	 1 helicopter             200,000

Croatia (17 July and 20-23 July) 1 helicopter
                                 1 Canadair plane
                                 1 unit of 8 firefighters 400,000

Romania   (23-24 July)           2 Spartan planes
                                 1 Hercules plane          20,000

Slovakia  (21-24 July)           1 helicopter
                                 3 fire vehicles,
                                 8 firefighters,
                                30 soldiers               702,000

Serbia    (22-24 July)           2 helicopters            590,000
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Total                                                   1,912,000

Source: The Administration for Civil Protection and Disaster Relief