STA, 18 June 2019 - Ljubljana, the runner up of the last Slovenian football premier league season, is reportedly in the process of being sold to an Italian businessman. According to sports paper Ekipa SN, Olimpija's chairman Milan Mandarić is looking to sell the club for at least EUR 6 million.

Mandarić, an Serbian-American tycoon who also owned England's Portsmouth, Leicester City and Sheffield Wednesday in the past, bought the Ljubljana club from banana wholesaler Izet Rastoder in 2015, reportedly for EUR 4 million.

According to Tuesday's report on Ekipa SN's website, the potential new owner is Italian businessman Gabriele Nardin, who was already involved in Slovenian football at lower levels through Jadran Dekani, a small village club that currently plays in the second Slovenian league.

Ekipa says Nardin has until 10 July to pay the first instalment in the amount of EUR 3 million.

Mandarić would reportedly also be entitled to the revenue from the sale of players, while part of the deal is allegedly also connected to a potential transfer of Slovenia's star goalkeeper Jan Oblak form Madrid's Atletico.

If Oblak left Madrid, Olimpija would also be entitled to part of the buyout sum as compensation for having raised the player, the paper reported.

While Olimpija has seen a seemingly never ending streak of headcoach replacements under Mandarić, the club also ended a 20-year national championship drought in 2015/2016. Olimpija won the national title again 2017/18, also becoming the Cup winner that year and again this year.

STA, 18 June 2019 - A deal was signed in Novo Mesto on Tuesday that is to pave the way for revitalisation of a hundred-year-old cross-border railway infrastructure connecting Ljubljana with Slovenian border towns and further with Croatia.

The agreement on cooperation was signed by representatives of nine Slovenian municipalities, including Ljubljana, and Croatia's Karlovac. The project will be coordinated by the Novo Mesto Development Centre.

According to the head of the centre, Franc Bratkovič, the municipalities will contribute more than EUR 100,000 for the project in the next couple of years. "We will do everything we can to have the project included in national and European documents," he said.

The goal of the initiative to revive the hundred-year-old cross border railway infrastructure connecting Ljubljana with the border towns and further with Croatia's Karlovac and later Zagreb, is to make the Slovenian railway network and the towns along the railway competitive, said Novo Mesto Mayor Gregor Macedoni.

The modernisation of the railway is to boost connectivity, international cooperation and regional development.

One of the initiators of the project that was conceived a year ago, Grosuplje Mayor Peter Verlič, said that it was a precondition for the setting up of the European Grouping of Territorial Cooperation, which will enable the drawing of EU funds.

The modernisation of the railway, which is expected to be finalised in about ten years, will be funded from various sources.

In the initial phase, the railway track is to be modernised to allow for higher travelling speeds and heavier trains, train stations renovated and dangerous level crossings eliminated.

The next phase is to include electrification of the track and the purchase of ten modern trains.

The costs of the project have not been estimated yet, but Verlič said they would probably be similar to the costs of the modernisation of the Grosuplje-Kočevje railway.

Those costs reached almost EUR 100m.

STA, 18 June 2019 - Prime Minister Marjan Šarec has become a victim of identify theft. A person posing as him has set up a false profile on Facebook's messaging app Messenger and started chatting with people.

Šarec told his Facebook followers Tuesday morning that a person had hijacked his identity to communicate via Messenger using Facebook's option of creating a Messenger profile without having a Facebook account.

"I do not use this kind of communication. If you've received such a message, ignore it, it's a fake profile," said Šarec, who had been alerted to the fake account by Facebook users.

The attached screenshot reveals whoever created the Messenger account used Šarec's Facebook profile picture and his full name.

Šarec often posts updates about his work on Facebook and has around 32,000 followers on the social network.

STA, 17 June 2019 - The builder GH Holding and a group of other Slovenian construction companies signed a deal on Monday with public utility company Bikarac from Croatia's Šibenik on the construction of a EUR 26.5 million waste management centre, the biggest regional centre in the country.

Roland Tušar of GH Holding said winning the deal in an international public call for applications was in line with the company's long-term strategy of expanding its presence in Croatia.

The EU-funded project, which is expected to take 30 months, includes the construction of a modern facility for mechanical biological treatment of waste, support facilities, a compositing plant, road, substation and the supply of vehicles to be used at the centre.

Among the companies in the consortium are also VGP Drava Ptuj and Pomgrad.

The signing of the contract was attended by Croatian Environment Minister Tomislav Ćorić.

STA, 17 June 2019 - The aid provided to migrants by the Legal and Information Centre (PIC), a group of NGOs, does not constitute a crime, Interior Minister Boštjan Poklukar told the National Assembly during questions time on Monday. He was answering a question from the opposition Democrats (SDS), who are appalled that these NGOs get state funding.

This comes less than a month after PIC president Katarina Bervar Sternad was reported to the police by Zmago Jelinčič, the president of the opposition National Party (SNS).

Poklukar confirmed today that the police saw an increase in the number of times PIC informed the police of illegal migrants entering the country.

Apart from informing the police of the migrants' location, PIC also sent to the police their names and informed them of the migrants' medical state, Poklukar said.

The minister said that migrants had told the police a PIC representative had given them directions, handed out leaflets with directions and advised them on how to conduct themselves in police proceedings and other procedures.

Both the relevant District Prosecution and the Supreme State Prosecution shared the view that PIC's actions did not amount to a crime, according to Poklukar.

The Supreme Prosecution also said that PIC's activities would have been criminal if they were done for financial gain, the minister added.

The answer was provided to SDS deputy Branko Grims, who said in his question that PIC was actively helping migrants in abusing the asylum procedure.

STA, 17 June 2019 - Prime Minister Marjan Šarec agreed with an opposition MP during questions time in parliament on Monday that Slovenia should not allow small environmental groups halt developmentally and environmentally important projects. He proposes that the Environment Ministry draw up legislation to prevent this.

"Protecting the environment is important, but stopping every project will also not get us far," the prime minister told MPs, adding that Slovenia would have to decide where it would obtain energy from.

Šarec was responding to a question by Dušan Šiško of the opposition National Party (SNS) on the latest in a series of projects that faced opposition from environmental groups.

After the government aborted plans to build hydro power stations on the river Mura in the north-east at the end of May, the latest project stopped by environmentalists is the construction of the Mokrice plant in the south-eastern part of the Sava river.

The Austrian-Canadian automotive multinational Magna Steyr also faced strong opposition from environmentalists before it could build a paint shop in Hoče, north-east.

Referring to the Mokrice case, in which a small, six-member NGO, the Society for Fish Watching, managed to halt the EUR 200 million project by launching an appeal at the Administrative Court, Šiško asked the PM how long will environmental and other groups be able to obstruct investments of national importance.

"We are letting small groups for reasons that are not clear halt developmentally and environmentally important projects under the pretence of environmental protection.

"The state has clearly made a mistake by allowing every group which has a status of a public interest group to take part in procedures and actually work against public interest," Šiško said.

Šarec noted the government had moved to protect Mura, as promised, and would protect a lot more, but "that's not enough for some". "Every day I get mail from different initiatives to stop this and that construction, close TEŠ 6 and Krško. I agree this is not the way to go about things," he said.

Šarec thinks the Environment Ministry should prepare legislation that would specify which organisations serve the public interest to introduce some restrictions as to who can act as a stakeholder.

He said common sense should be used when addressing environmental issues. "Even the fiercest environmentalists use mobile phones, cars and other modern technology. All these use electricity in a direct or indirect way," he said.

"We're always moving from one extreme to the other. We used to not care about the environment at all, and now we want to protect it so much that we are causing damage to ourselves," he said.

Wind power plants are widespread everywhere around the world, only in Slovenia "birds and butterflies apparently don't know how to fly pass them", Šarec illustrated.

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This summary is provided by the STA:

S&P upgrades rating for Slovenia from A+ to AA-

LJUBLJANA - The rating agency Standard & Poor's (S&P) upgraded its rating for Slovenia from A+ with a positive outlook to AA- with a stable outlook due to strong economic growth and employment growth, the Finance Ministry said in a press release. S&P said Slovenia "continues to post strong GDP and employment growth, alongside fiscal and external surpluses". After Moody's upgraded Slovenia's outlook to stable from positive in April, the upgrade by S&P is an "additional and significant confirmation that Slovenia is on the right track to get the AA rating it had in May 2006," the Finance Ministry said.

Final decision on Abanka privatisation deferred to Wednesday

LJUBLJANA - The final decision on the privatisation of Abanka, Slovenia's third largest bank, has been deferred to Wednesday after the supervisory board of Slovenian Sovereign Holding (SSH) decided not to convene today as planned. Karmen Dietner, SSH chief supervisor, said the supervisory wanted to "thoroughly examine the large amount of material that represents the substantive basis for the decision." Comments by PM Šarec suggest the bank will be privatised despite initial apprehension on his part - after SSH's reaction that only the government had the power to change the course of the privatisation, Šarec said today the decision was in SSH's hands.

Country's top officials denounce attack on district judge

LJUBLJANA - President Borut Pahor condemned Sunday's attack on the Maribor district judge Daniela Ružič and urged the authorities to thoroughly investigate the incident. "I condemn the attack, I'm worried because of it and I expect the authorities to investigate and determine the perpetrator and their motive," the president said after the attack in which the judge, who is covering corporate crime, was injured severely. Other top political and judiciary officials have denounced the attack as well and called for zero tolerance for violence, among them PM Marjan Šarec, Speaker Dejan Židan, Justice Minister Andreja Katič and Human Rights Ombudsman Peter Svetina.

Adria Airways auditor in spotlight

LJUBLJANA - The auditing firm which checked the financials of Slovenian carrier Adria Airways for last year, the Slovenian branch of PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), is being scrutinised by the Slovenian Agency for Public Oversight of Auditing on suspicion that Adria's financial statements do not accurately reflect its financial state, news portal Siol reported. Adria, whose air operator certificate could be on the line, said "we've been informed about the audit and we do not see any problems. We're convinced our auditors have conducted a fair and professional audit of our financial statements".

Šarec agrees environmental groups often obstruct important projects

LJUBLJANA - Prime Minister Marjan Šarec agreed with an opposition MP during questions time in parliament that Slovenia should not allow small environmental groups halt developmentally and environmentally important projects. He proposes that the Environment Ministry draw up legislation to prevent this. "Protecting the environment is important, but stopping every project will also not get us far," the prime minister told MPs, adding that Slovenia would have to decide where it would obtain energy from.

Pahor receives Order of Malta's grand master

LJUBLJANA - The grand master of the Order of Malta, Giacomo Dalla Torre del Tempio di Sanguinetta, is completing his multi-day visit by meeting President Borut Pahor and PM Marjan Šarec to discuss humanitarian cooperation. Pahor and Della Torre had a "brief but very substantive" meeting, discussing all topics concerning Slovenia and the Order of Malta, but also the most topical issues in Europe and the world. Pahor said it would be useful if Slovenia and the Order of Malta reached a cooperation agreement as a follow-up to the exemplary cooperation they had had since they established diplomatic relations in 1992.

NGO not breaking law in aiding migrants, prosecution says

LJUBLJANA - Interior Minister Boštjan Poklukar said that the aid provided to migrants by the Legal and Information Centre (PIC), a group of NGOs, did not constitute a crime, as he answered a question from the opposition Democrats (SDS), who are appalled that these NGOs get state funding. This comes less than a month after PIC president Katarina Bervar Sternad was reported to the police by Zmago Jelinčič, the head of the opposition National Party (SNS). Poklukar confirmed that the police saw an increase in the number of times PIC informed the police of illegal migrants entering the country. Both the relevant District Prosecution and the Supreme State Prosecution shared the view that PIC's actions did not amount to a crime, according to him.

Average pay down in April

LJUBLJANA - Slovenia's average monthly gross pay in April amounted to EUR 1,730.70, a 1.2% decrease on March in nominal terms and a 2% decrease in real terms mainly due to lower extra payments, shows Statistics Office data. The average April gross pay was higher year-on-year by 4% in nominal terms and 2.3% in real terms. The average net pay for April was EUR 1,114.98, which is again higher than last year's April net pay - by 3.3% in nominal terms and 1.6% in real terms. Compared to March, the average net pay for April decreased by 1.4% in the public sector and by 1% in the private one.

Slovenian companies to build Croatia's biggest regional waste centre

ŠIBENIK, Croatia - The builder GH Holding and a group of other Slovenian construction companies signed a deal with public utility company Bikarac from Croatia's Šibenik on the construction of a EUR 26.5 million waste management centre, the biggest regional centre in the country. The EU-funded project, which is expected to take 30 months, includes the construction of a modern facility for mechanical biological treatment of waste, support facilities, a compositing plant, road, substation and the supply of vehicles to be used at the centre. The consortium also includes VGP Drava Ptuj and Pomgrad.

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STA, 17 June 2019 - Dragan Barbutovski has been appointed the new head of the British Council in Slovenia. He says he will continue the efforts of the UK's international organisation in promoting cooperation between the two countries in culture and education.

Barbutovski, who has replaced Aida Salamanca as the director, has been working in diplomacy and fostering relations with various shareholders for more than 20 years.

He managed EU projects in Kosovo and Georgia which were designed to raise awareness about the EU. He is also the co-founder of the only Slovenian organisation for EU politicians Evropa Misli (Think Europe) and have contributed to a number of political initiatives on the future of the EU, reads the British Council press release.

"I'm extremely pleased to be able to continue the tradition of successful relations between Slovenia and the UK in culture and education and to strengthen the relations between shareholders of both countries so that we could create more opportunities for cooperation through innovation, skill development and partnership," said the new director.

He will work on the development of long-term and mutually beneficial partnerships between the two countries, with a special emphasis on Slovenian youth's opportunities for studying in the UK or distance learning and providing access to British universities for Slovenian educational institutions, researchers and students.

Barbutovski will also focus on increasing the amount of English language exams the organisation provides and promoting cooperation with the British Council's partners in Slovenia including in arts and culture.

The British Council is the UK's international organisation for cultural relations and educational opportunities, being active in more than 100 countries.

It was established in 1934 as a charitable organisation by British Foreign Office officials. The organisation, which is co-funded by the British government, has been present in Slovenia since 1992.

The British council in Slovenia supports various cultural events throughout the year, including the 35th Slovenian Book Fair this year and the performance of the acclaimed British physical theatre company Gecko at this year's Slovenian theatre festival Borštnik Meeting.

STA, 17 June 2019 - The final decision on the privatisation of Abanka, Slovenia's third largest bank, has been deferred to Wednesday after the supervisory board of Slovenian Sovereign Holding (SSH) decided not to convene Monday as planned. Nevertheless, comments by Prime Minister Šarec suggest the bank will be privatised despite initial apprehension.

Karmen Dietner, the chief supervisor of SSH, said the session was postponed so that the supervisory can "thoroughly examine the large amount of material that represents the substantive basis for the decision."

Abanka must be privatised by the end of this month according to commitments Slovenia made in exchange for a state aid clearance it received from the European Commission in 2013.

The procedure went according to plan until Prime Minister Šarec cast doubt on the plan by tweeting on 7 June that SSH should think about its decision given that police investigations into the bailout are ongoing.

But Šarec appeared to backtrack today, telling parliament during questions time that he was not putting any pressure on anyone. "The decision on the sale of Abanka will be adopted by SSH," he said.

The statement appears to settle who will have the final say: after the original tweet, SSH said only the government, representing the state as SSH's sole shareholder, had the power to change the course of the privatisation.

"I believe [SSH supervisors] are capable of taking this decision themselves without making anyone else responsible," Šarec said.

Šarec suggested his original tweet had simply been a comment on new facts revealed at the time - the release of the criminal complaint against the 2013 board of the central bank.

"I'm not pressuring anyone... This is simply a major story and the criminal complaint was a new fact for me," he told MPs.

Commenting on the issue before the postponement decision was made, Infrastructure Minister Alenka Bratušek, who was prime minister at the time of the 2013 bank bailout, said that there were actually no new facts lately which could affect the sale.

"It is irresponsible to change political decisions based on one documentary show," the head of the coalition Alenka Bratušek Party (SAB) said in reference to RTV Slovenija's documentary about the bailout.

The film raised questions about the role of the European Commission in ordering that junior creditors of three banks be wiped out, prompting Šarec to publish the tweet in question.

Bratušek said that the coalition partners had immediately agreed that they would contact the European Commission last September to present the arguments for postponing the sale. This should have been done in September, not a week before the deadline, she added.

"When [SSH] is able to tell what will be the consequences of sale or non-sale, then we will be able to make the right decision. I hope that those who started this non-sale are aware of the possible consequences."

Coalition Pensioners' Party (DeSUS) head Karl Erjavec noted that the party had been against selling banks all the time, but added he did not believe anyone could stop the Abanka sale.

Asked about his potential vote in the government, the foreign minister said he would see what arguments SSH would give for leaving it to the government to decide.

Igor Zorčič, the head of the deputy group of the coalition Modern Centre Party (SMC), said that the "prime minister said he was reserved about this, and we are reserved even more."

"If SSH returns the issue to the government, it will probably need to decide in line with what its representatives have been saying," he added.

Luka Mesec of the opposition Left said that given Šarec's tweet, "we expect from the supervisory board to reject the sale of Abanka or leave it to the government to reject the sale and launch appropriate proceedings before the European Commission".

On the other hand, Jernej Vrtovec of the opposition New Slovenia said that Abanka needed to be sold, "not because of the commitments, but because I believe it would perform better in private ownership".

"I've had enough of these co-financing and recapitalisations of the banking system we had witnessed in the past," he said, adding that the pressure not to sale Abanka now, including from politicians, was inadmissible.

SSH is selling 100% of Abanka, with three binding bids reportedly in the EUR 400-500 million range, about a fifth below book value but, together with recent dividend payments, the proceeds would still be higher than what the state invested in Abanka as part of the bailout.

The SSH supervisors can either complete the sale directly or ask the government as the sole shareholder to have the final say, which is exactly what happened last year, when marker leader NLB was privatised.

STA, 17 June 2019 - The rating agency Standard & Poor's (S&P) upgraded on Friday its rating for Slovenia from A+ with a positive outlook to AA- with a stable outlook due to strong economic growth and employment growth, the Finance Ministry said in a press release on Monday.

S&P said Slovenia "continues to post strong GDP and employment growth, alongside fiscal and external surpluses".

Based on the last nine years of private sector deleveraging and a decline of government debt to GDP since 2015, the agency thinks Slovenia has substantial buffers in the event of an external shock.

It projects Slovenia's net general government debt will decline further to about 40% of GDP over 2019-2022.

"The stable outlook takes into account the upside potential from faster income convergence toward the eurozone average, but also possible higher-than-expected external risks to economic growth, public finances, and financial stability, and the potential for buildup of macroeconomic imbalances."

After Moody's upgraded Slovenia's outlook to stable from positive in April, the upgrade by S&P is an "additional and significant confirmation that Slovenia is on the right track to get the AA rating it had in May 2006," the Finance Ministry said.

S&P raised its long- and short-term foreign and local currency sovereign credit ratings on Slovenia to 'AA-/A-1+' from 'A+/A-1'. The outlook is stable.

"The stable outlook on Slovenia balances the prospects for further income convergence with wealthier eurozone member states via balanced economic growth against the potential for a significant weakening in the external environment and the resulting adverse impact on the Slovenian economy and its budgetary position," the agency says in the report.

S&P expects the Slovenian economy will expand by 3.4% in real terms this year. "Growth will moderate to an average of slightly below 3% over 2020-2022, compared with brisk expansion over the past two years when growth reached almost 5% on average."

Domestic demand is expected to be the key driver of growth in the coming years.

The agency expects private consumption to pick up in 2019, and project investments expand at 7% in 2019-2022 in real terms, albeit slightly down from over 10% in 2017-2018.

It forecasts net general government debt will decrease to just over 40% of GDP by 2022, from 52% in 2018 due to robust GDP growth and sound fiscal results.

"In 2019, the debt reduction trend could be further supported by privatization proceeds from the sale of an additional 10% stake in the country's largest lender, NLB, and from the sale of the third-largest bank, Abanka."

Despite a slowdown in exports, S&P expects a "resilient performance of Slovenia's export-oriented manufacturing sector, and robust services exports, resulting in a slight reduction of the current account surplus to 5% of GDP by 2022 from 7% in 2018".

S&P also called for structural reforms in education, the taxation of labour, public administration, and state-owned companies.

It expects the structural reform agenda to be piecemeal, especially in health care, pensions, and long-term care of the elderly, and that the reduction of the state's role in the economy will progress only slowly.