STA, 1 May 2019 - "The European Union is strong because it is united by its diversity and differences, big and small," Foreign Minister Miro Cerar tweeted on Wednesday. The minister, who is attending a ceremony in Warsaw, marking the 15th anniversary of the accession of ten countries to the EU, including Slovenia, congratulated Slovenians on the anniversary.

"On 1 May 2004, Slovenia celebrates 15 years in the European Union, along with Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland and Slovakia, who joined the EU on 1 May 2004. The enlargement has benefited all member states and their citizens," Cerar said in another tweet.

In the last 15 years, trade between old and new member states had tripled. It increased five times, among new member states alone. The purchase power of Slovenians rose by 30%, exports doubled, foreign investments tripled, the Foreign Ministry tweeted.

Širitev #EU je prinesla koristi vsem državam članicam. V 15 letih se je trgo. menjava med starimi in novimi članicami povečala za 3x, samo med novimi članicami pa za 5x. Kupna moč ?? državljanov se je povečala za 30 %, izvoz se je podvojil, vrednost tujih investicij pa potrojila. pic.twitter.com/jITC9f5llY

— dr. Miro Cerar (@MiroCerar) May 1, 2019

"Slovenia is now co-deciding together with other EU countries on European projects and European future," Cerar wrote on the web site of his Modern Centre Party (SMC).

"Slovenia remains an eager supporter of the European enlargement in the Western Balkans," he said, stressing the importance of the upcoming EU election.

"This year's election is one of the most important elections in recent years. They will be held in a time when rallies honouring Benito Mussolini are being held in Milan, when an extreme rightist party returned to the Spanish parliament after 40 years, and when the voices of extreme rightists are becoming stronger in some other parliaments."

Cerar said that citizens must turn out for the election to defend the friendly, compassionate and liberal Europe and stand up to the attempts to demolish the European project.

The 15th anniversary of the enlargement is celebrated by high representatives of the ten countries in Warsaw today. The event is hosted by Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki.

The officials were also joined by Romanian Prime Minister Viorica Dancila, Croatian PM Andrej Plenković and Hungarian PM Viktor Orban. The European Commission is represented by its Vice President Jyrki Katainen.

Cerar, who represents Slovenia at the celebration, also held bilateral talks with his Polish counterpart Jacek Czaputowicz on the sidelines of the event.

The pair talked about cooperation between Slovenia and Poland as part of the EU, according to Cerar.

Cerar also congratulated Slovenians on Labour Day, saying he wished everyone a decent job and pay.

Fifteen years after the big EU enlargement, the bloc is faced with Brexit and Euroscepticism, while the enlargement process has come to a standstill.

Western Balkan countries should be treated as a package if reconciliation is to be achieved in the region, analyst Stefani Weiss of the Bertelsmann foundation told the STA.

The enlargement process should be graduate and multilayered; there should be more intermediate steps before the final one - full-fledged membership, Weiss told the STA.

All our stories about Slovenia and the EU can be found here

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This summary is provided by the STA

Šarec says Labour Day is not ideological holiday

RAVNE NA KOROŠKEM - Addressing a Labour Day ceremony in Ravne na Koroškem, Prime Minister Marjan Šarec said that Labour Day was not an ideological holiday but a "holiday of good people, who like to spend time together, who work hard every day and who love their country." Šarec said that celebrations such as those marking Labour Day were important for exchanging views and for a positive atmosphere in the country.

Pahor urges Slovenians to turn out in EU election

LJUBLJANA - President Borut Pahor urged Slovenians to cast their votes in the upcoming European Parliament elections in an interview with the STA ahead the 15th anniversary of Slovenia's joining the EU, observed today. The vote will show whether more people support the union or oppose it, Pahor believes. "All of us, who see the EU as brining a future of peace, security, prosperity and the future for our children have the obligation to do something ... It is our responsibility to encourage people to vote," he said.

Cerar congratulates Slovenians on EU membership anniversary

WARSAW, Poland - "The European Union is strong because it is united by its diversity and differences, big and small," Foreign Minister Miro Cerar tweeted on Wednesday. The minister, who is attending a ceremony in Warsaw, marking the 15th anniversary of the accession of ten countries to the EU, including Slovenia, congratulated Slovenians on the anniversary. Cerar also held bilateral talks with his Polish counterpart Jacek Czaputowicz on the sidelines of the event. The pair talked about cooperation between Slovenia and Poland as part of the EU, according to Cerar.

Trade unions point to working time issues on Labour Day

LJUBLJANA - Ahead of this year's Labour Day, the Slovenian trade unions pointed out that many employees work more than eight hours a day or 40 hours per week or take their work home. Unions also warned about the dangers of precarious work. The head of the ZSSS trade union confederation Lidija Jerkič told the STA that work has been increasingly invading private lives also due to overall digitalisation and modern technologies.

Slovenia's GDP per capita up 40% since EU accession

BRUSSELS, Belgium - GDP per capita increased by 41% in Slovenia since the country joined the EU 15 years ago, according to a leaflet issued by the European Commission on the eve of Slovenia's accession. Since 2004, Slovenia received EUR 9.2bn in structural and investments funds from the EU and since 2014, the EU has provided structural funding equivalent to 29% of all public investments in the country.

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STA, 23 April 2019 - The Slovenian capital will host music greats yet again this summer as the Ljubljana Festival opens its doors on 2 July. The biggest names in the line-up include Zubin Mehta, Sergei Krylov and Svetlana Zakharovna.

Before the official start, tenor Placido Domingo will conduct Verdi's momentous Requiem on 17 June. The performance will feature solos by soprano Elvira Hasanagić, tenor Arturo Chacon-Cruz and basso Roberto Tagliavini. They will be accompanied by the Slovenian Philharmonic Choir and Orchestra and the Chorus of the SNG Opera and Ballet Ljubljana.

A performance of Giuseppe Verdi's Aida, one of the most well-known and most often performed operas in history, will officially open the festival. It will be a co-production between the Ljubljana Festival, the Croatian National Theatre in Split, the Slovenian Philharmonic and the SNG Maribor. Director Dražen Siriščević is said to have included several Lipizzaners in the performance.

Special emphasis focus will be on orchestras, of which the most notable will be the closing concert of the festival by the Israeli Philharmonic, conducted by the famed Zubin Mehta, the organisers told the press on Tuesday.

Other guests include Russian prima ballerina Svetlana Zakharovna, Italian contemporary dance company Arterballetto, Turin's Teatro Regio Theatre performing Verdi's Traviata, the Shenzhen Symphony Orchestra featuring Day Lin, the Seongnam Philharmonic Orchestra featuring Sergei Krylov on violin, the Munich Radio Orchestra, and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Ivan Repušić.

There will be no shortage of solo performances, including by violinists Massimo Quarto and Alen Baev, flautist Massimo Mercelli and pianist Vadim Kolodenko.

The full programme, along with details of how to buy tickets, can be found on the related website, while a 132-page PDF version, in Slovene and English, can be seen or downloaded here

STA, 30 April 2019 - The Ljubljana Local Court has drastically reduced the fine originally issued to the opposition Democrats (SDS) in connection to the first of two violations of the political parties act, while only issuing a reprimand as opposed to a fine in connection to the second, shows a report by the weekly Demokracija.

The SDS, which has made headlines over two contentious loans it took out in 2017, was indicted by the Court of Audit in March 2018 and found guilty by the local court earlier this year, but reports about the details have been conflicting.

The Local Court, which maintains that the largest parliamentary party broke the law in both cases, has revised upon the SDS's appeal both of its original verdicts reached in fast-track procedure.

While it originally ordered the party to pay EUR 20,000 and its head Janez Janša EUR 2,000 over a EUR 60,000 loan illegally taken out from the publisher Nova Obzorja, it later reduced the fines to EUR 4,200 and EUR 500, respectively.

The SDS told the STA that it is also not happy with the revised verdict and is challenging it at the Higher Court.

The party will on the other hand probably not appeal the revised decision of the Local Court in the segment of the case pertaining to a EUR 450,000 loan taken out with Bosnian citizen Dijana Đuđić.

The court initially issued a EUR 4,200 fine to the party and EUR 450 to Janša, but later decided to only issue a reprimand and have them cover the costs of the court procedure.

Parties can only borrow from banks and savings banks, or a limited amount from individuals. The Đuđić loan vastly exceeded this amount.

The SDS returned the first instalment, EUR 150,000, it had already received from the then 32-year-old Bosnian immediately after the Court of Audit's opinion, which the Local Court listed as a mitigating circumstance. It also noted that the loan agreement had been approved by a notary.

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This summary is provided by the STA:

Šarec urges comprehensive, fully implementable Kosovo-Serbia agreement

BERLIN, Germany - PM Marjan Šarec stressed as one of the participants of Monday's informal summit on the Western Balkans that the much needed agreement between Kosovo and Serbia would have to be in line with international law, well coordinated and comprehensive. While the summit, hosted by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron, failed to revive the stalled dialogue between Belgrade and Prishtina, Šarec highlighted Slovenia's support to the region on its Euroatlantic path. He stressed the EU needed to remain active in encouraging good relations and pointed to the Greece-North Macedonia agreement as an import model for how to reach compromise.

Annual inflation rate at 1.7% in April, monthly at 0.8%

LJUBLJANA - Slovenia's annual inflation rate in April was at 1.7%, up 0.1 percentage points compared to March, while 0.8% inflation was recorded on the monthly level. Annual inflation was mostly driven by higher prices of energy, and monthly inflation by dearer holidays and footwear, the Statistics Office said. In one year, service prices went up on average by 3.6% and goods prices by 0.8%. The annual rate has been rising since the start of the year.

First quarter budget deficit down 9% y/y to EUR 201.8m

LJUBLJANA - Slovenia's budget deficit amounted to EUR 201.8m in the first quarter of the year, down 9% compared to the same period last year, the Finance Ministry said, adding that a deficit was nothing unusual in that part of the year due to the payment of a major part of interest and subsidies. Budget revenue increased by 9% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2019 to EUR 2.36bn, while expenditure was up by 7.5% to EUR 2.56bn. Tax revenue was up by 8.5% to EUR 2.04bn, while the state paid EUR 402m in interest in the first quarter, which is 12.6% less year-on-year.

German president to visit Slovenia

LJUBLJANA - The president's office announced that German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier will arrive in Slovenia for a two-day official visit on 9 May. The future of the EU and the upcoming elections to the European Parliament will be in the focus of talks between President Borut Pahor and his guest. They will also discuss the situation on the international community, especially the Western Balkans and the "possibilities and the readiness of countries in the region to join Euro-Atlantic integrations".

Erjavec appoints new army's force commander

LJUBLJANA - Defence Minister Karl Erjavec has appointed Brigadier Milan Žurman the new force commander of the Slovenian Armed Forces, to succeed Brigadier Miha Škerbinc, who was dismissed at the beginning of April. Žurman, who previously served as the deputy force commander, will take over today, the Defence Ministry said, noting that the appointment came on the proposal by the chief of the general staff, Maj Gen Alenka Ermenc. Škerbinc was dismissed ostensibly because he allowed shooting with heavy weapons late at night at the Poček training grounds near Postojna.

SDS only issued reprimand over illegal EUR 450,000 loan from Bosnian

LJUBLJANA - The Ljubljana Local Court has drastically reduced the fine originally issued to the opposition Democrats (SDS) in connection to the first of two violations of the political parties act, while only issuing a reprimand as opposed to a fine in connection to the second, shows a report by the weekly Demokracija. The SDS was indicted by the Court of Audit in March 2018 over two contentious loans it took out in 2017, and found guilty by the local court earlier this year, but reports about the details have been conflicting. The local court, which maintains that the SDS broke the law in both cases, has revised upon the SDS's appeal both of its original verdicts.

DZS group increases profit, revenue

LJUBLJANA - Tourism and media group DZS posted EUR 2.5m in net profit last year, an improvement over the EUR 91,000 in profit generated the year before. Sales revenue was at EUR 87m, slightly higher than in 2017, DZS said in the business report. Earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) went up by a third, from EUR 3.2m to EUR 4.3m, while earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) went from audited EUR 8.6m in 2017 to EUR 9.9m.

Report says Turkish embassy spied on Erdogan critics in Slovenia

LJUBLJANA - The Swedish news portal Nordic Monitor claims it has obtained secret documents revealing that diplomats working at the Turkish Embassy in Ljubljana spied on a number of critics of Turkey's government and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The Foreign Ministry told the STA that it was not familiar with Nordic Monitor's report and does not want to comment. The STA has also contacted the Turkish Embassy for comment.

STA, 30 April 2019 - The Ažman Computer Centre was inaugurated on Wednesday at the National Institute of Chemistry. The result of years of planning, the final upgrade to the Institute's Theoretical Section will provide support to theoretical and experimental research studies, help with personnel training, and ensure high-quality performance.

Gregor Anderluh, director of the Institute, said that such infrastructure was crucial to the work of nearly all of their departments, and that by inaugurating the centre, Slovenia was successfully keeping up with the times. He also emphasised the centre's importance in facilitating research and contributing to the Institute's international presence.

The investment was worth 150,000 euros, with various departments of the Institute and the Slovenian Research Agency helping to finance its equipment.

Anderluh added that this year they plan to acquire a cryo-electron microscope that will generate massive quantities of data, highlighting the need for such infrastructure. He believes their computing capacity will most likely need to be further expanded in the coming year or two.

The Computer Centre is part of the Pregl Research Centre, founded in 2013, that houses a specialised area with a state-of-the-art cooling system of up to 175kW.

The Pregl Centre is also suitable for the future expansion of computing capacities to 5,000 computer cores and its inclusion into the national supercomputing network.

Jernej Stare, who was responsible for the upgrade, explained that the centre was now made up of 20 servers, each containing two 24-core AMD Epyc processors.

Each of the computers has 64 GB of RAM. This in total means the Institute has 960 physical cores at its disposal, each having two virtual cores, he noted.

The computer centre was named after Andrej Ažman, Slovenian-born quantum chemistry pioneer. Despite his untimely death, Ažman published 171 research papers during his lifetime, and was the first member of the Institute to have a paper published in the journal Nature, professor Jože Koller said as he gave a presentation on the scientist's life and work.

April 30, 2019

We remind our readers that due to Labour Day celebrations nearly all stores will be closed on May 1 and May 2.

Also, tonight is bonfire night. You can check if there are any public bonfires organised in your area, just search for “Kresovanje”.

In Ljubljana, as in previous years, a bonfire will be lit on Rožnik Hill tonight (Tuesday) at 22:00.

The regional aviation website Ex-Yu Aviation reports that Air France’s winter schedule for 2019/2020 will more than double the number of weekly flights between Paris and Ljubljana, rising from six to thirteen. This will see two flights a day, except for Saturdays, with the route being served by the Air France HOP! brand. Visitors to and from the French capital will also have more choice from Adria Airways, which is planning to increase its scheduled service from five days a week to seven.

STA, 25 April 2019 - The opposition Democrats (SDS) filed into parliamentary procedure on Thursday a bill on the creation of a demographic fund to prop up the pension system. In line with the proposal, all of state assets would be transferred to the fund, which would mainly finance pensions.

SDS head Janez Janša called on all parliamentary parties to add their remarks. The only point the SDS will insist on is the transfer of all state assets onto the fund, he said.

Otherwise the arguing over which assets should be transferred to the fund will go on forever, he said.

The aim of the bill is to improve the financial situation of pensioners, which is currently below the level of Slovenia's development, and lift the pressure off employers and employees, who have to pay increasingly high contributions to the pension fund to keep the pension system sustainable.

He noted that the name National Pension Fund would be more appropriate than the demographic fund.

According to Janša, the transfer of all state assets onto the fund would also facilitate management of state assets, which is currently not transparent because it is divided among several institutions.

The role of the sole shareholder would be assumed by the National Assembly to make sure that the management of state assets would not be "in the hands of those on power."

In line with the SDS's proposal, the current custodian of state assets, Slovenian Sovereign Holding, would be transformed into the Slovenian demographic fund.

All other investments of the state, the pension fund management KAD fund, the real estate investment firm DSU and the Pension and Disability Insurance Institute (ZPIZ), the public pension insurer, would also be transferred to the new fund.

According to SDS MP Andrej Šircelj, the fund would have a supervisory board and a management.

The supervisory board would have 13 members, put forward by deputy groups. The number of members put forward by each deputy group would depend on the size of the deputy group.

The supervisors would be appointed by the National Assembly with a two-thirds majority of all MPs present.

The management of the fund would consist of the chairman and two members, who would be appointed by the supervisors based on a public call for applications.

Every year, the fund would give 50% of the dividends and rents it would receive, and 10% of all sale proceeds to ZPIZ.

The remaining 50% of the dividends and rents, and 40% of sale proceeds would be accumulated.

The demographic fund would allocate 50% of sale proceeds to the state budget to pay off debts.

The idea of a demographic fund as one of possible instruments to ensure a long-term sustainability of the pension system was floated years ago.

Its establishment was envisaged under the 2013 pension reform of the Alenka Bratušek government and every government since has dealt with the issue.

The current government coalition has also committed to founding such a fund in its coalition agreement. While the Finance Ministry has not revealed when the bill would be ready, Karl Erjavec, the head of the coalition Pensioners' Party (DeSUS), indicated that it might be ready this autumn.

Reacting to the SDS's motion today, most parties said they would study the proposal and respond to Janša's invitations to talks. The ministry, as well, said that it would study the proposal, although it was working on its own bill.

The coalition Marjan Šarec List (LMŠ) and the Modern Centre Party (SMC) expressed belief that any proposal on how to shape the fund would be useful and worth debating.

Matjaž Han, deputy group head of the coalition Social Democrats (SD), said that establishing a demographic fund would be much more than a project of a single party, this government or this coalition. This would be a project of the generation and a topic that must be discussed.

Erjavec meanwhile said that this was an important bill but expressed fear that the motion was politically motivated, adding that if the SDS were serious about it, it would have endorsed a similar bill drafted by DeSUS.

He said he was looking forward to seeing the bill drafted by the Finance Ministry. The ministry meanwhile said the task force working on the bill would model the bill on best practices of similar funds abroad.

All out stories on demographics in Slovenia can be found here

STA, 29 April 2019 - Police apprehended more than 250 foreigners who entered Slovenia unlawfully and tried to bypass the border control during the weekend. The Novo Mesto police arrested two Serbian citizens transporting six Pakistani illegal migrants.

The two Serbians were driving a vehicle with Slovenian plates and were intercepted near Trebnje (SE). Both of them have been detained. Five of the transported Pakistanis were handed over to the Croatian authorities, while one has asked for international protection.

At Dobova, the major railway border crossing with Croatia, police officers found a Moroccan citizen who was hiding under the carriage of a freight train from Serbia.

On Sunday night, police apprehended seven Afghan illegal migrants stowed away under the carriage of a similar freight train. The foreigners were handed over to the Croatian authorities.

The Novo Mesto police apprehended 96 foreigners who crossed the border unlawfully over the weekend. Most of them were from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Algeria and are still being processed.

The Koper police apprehended 74 illegal migrants, with 16 of them having already asked for international protection. Some of them are still being processed, while 49 have already been sent back to Croatia. Four Austrian citizens were released after being processed. Most of the apprehended foreigners were from Afghanistan.

The Ljubljana police caught 88 foreigners who have illegally crossed the state border over the past weekend and additional 23 by Monday morning.

The police data shows that the number of illegal border crossings has significantly increased this year - by almost 150% in the first three months.