What follows is a weekly review of events involving Slovenia, as prepared by the STA.
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FRIDAY, 7 August
LJUBLJANA - Interior Minister Aleš Hojs was reported to have requested a revision of certain already closed cases handled by the National Bureau of Investigation, at least three of which refer to high-profile cases with political implications. Jurists as well as police unions warned about the potential for abuse, but the minister insisted the move was within his powers. The police leadership said the reviews will be carried out as requested.
LJUBLJANA - Slovenia added Belgium and several other countries to its red list of countries, which signals high risk in terms of coronavirus contagion. The Czech Republic, Malta, Switzerland and three Spanish administrative units were meanwhile from the green list of safe countries and demoted to yellow.
IZOLA/LJUBLJANA - Anti-government protests continued for the 16th straight Friday in Ljubljana, this time targeting the handling of coronavirus outbreaks at care homes. Meanwhile, dozens took to the streets in Izola following the reports that the coastal town had paid for two hotel rooms for Agriculture Minister Aleksandra Pivec.
LJUBLJANA - Slovenia's exports were down 4.2% year-on-year in June, while imports decreased by 5.1%. The decreases for the first half of the year were 5.6% and 10.3% respectively, the Statistics Office said.
LJUBLJANA - Preliminary data by the Surveying and Mapping Authority indicated a 40% drop in the number of property transactions in the first half of 2020. Prices of used flats meanwhile continued to grow, increasing by 3% since the end of 2019.
SATURDAY, 8 August
LJUBLJANA - The government allocated EUR 200,000 in emergency humanitarian aid to Lebanon, while the Defence Ministry sent a humanitarian aid coordinator to the country as part of the EU Civil Protection Mechanism.
LJUBLJANA - Mitja Leskovar, the titular archbishop of Beneventum and apostolic nuncio to Iraq, received his episcopal consecration at the Ljubljana Cathedral. Leskovar, a Slovenian priest who has been with the Vatican's diplomatic service for nearly two decades, was appointed the apostolic nuncio to Iraq two months ago.
SUNDAY, 9 August
PARIS, France - Slovenian cyclist Primož Roglič of the Dutch team Team Jumbo-Visma won the three-stage Tour de l'Ain race in what was seen as a dress rehearsal for the Tour de France. Roglič finished second in the first stage and won the remaining two stages.
MONDAY, 10 August
LJUBLJANA - In an unprecedented rebellion against a party leader, the deputy group of the Pensioners' Party (DeSUS) urged Aleksandra Pivec to resign as DeSUS leader after she failed to provide adequate explanations about a series of media revelations that suggested she mixed official business with private affairs. Pivec, who was subsequently disavowed by the leader of the party's council, said she would take some time to think about her next moves.
LJUBLJANA - The Pensioners' Party (DeSUS) expressed opposition to the planned changes to media legislation, especially if the Culture Ministry does not provide sound arguments for its solutions based on expert analysis. The most problematic aspect of the package is the change to the media law which tasks RTV Slovenija to transfer a share of licence fee funds to other media outlets.
LJUBLJANA - Slovenia's industrial output grew for the second straight month in June, expanding by 4.3% from May. However, it was still 12.1% lower year-on-year, data from the Statistics Office show. The index for the first half of the year was 10.1% down year-on-year.
LJUBLJANA - The Slovenian railways operator generated a net profit of EUR 35 million on EUR 601 million in revenue for 2019, with EBITDA at EUR 87 million and EBIT at EUR 42 million, according to a revised business report for 2019.
TUESDAY, 11 August
LJUBLJANA - Slovenia formally submitted its application for financial support as part of the European instrument for temporary support to mitigate unemployment risks in an emergency (SURE). Slovenia would like to spent the money to provide support to furloughed workers, enable short-time work, basic income, state-covered social contributions for the self-employed and other groups.
ILIRSKA BISTRICA - Interior Ministry State Secretary Franc Kangler met his Croatian counterpart Terezija Gras for talks focussed on cooperation in efforts to prevent illegal crossings of the border. He said that Slovenia supported Croatia's accession to the Schengen zone because this would help prevent illegal migration at the EU's external border.
LJUBLJANA - President Borut Pahor received Austrian MP Olga Voglauer, a member of the Slovenian ethnic minority in Carinthia, ahead of the centenary of the plebiscite in Carinthia. The pair shared the view that the upcoming anniversary was an opportunity to improve the position of the minority.
BRDO PRI KRANJU - The Slovenian Football Association (NZS) decided to postpone the start of the new premier league season from 12 to 22 August as three more players tested positive for Sars-CoV-2 after part of obligatory testing. All three positive players come from Ljubljana's Olimpija, which became the third premiere league club with positive cases.
WEDNESDAY, 12 August
LJUBLJANA - Foreign Minister Anže Logar called for a strong and united EU response to the situation in Belarus in the wake of violence against protesters who refuse to recognise Alexander Lukashenko's re-election. Logar made the appeal in a letter to his German and Portuguese counterparts, Heiko Mass and Augusto Santos Silva, whose countries form the EU trio presidency with Slovenia.
LJUBLJANA - Supreme Court vice-president Miodrag Đorđević temporary suspended district court judge Zvjezdan Radonjić over several grave disciplinary breaches. Radonjić, who has accused other judges of accepting bribes and claimed pressure had been exerted on him in a high-profile case, has been a vocal critic of the Slovenian judiciary. He made headlines as the presiding judge in the case of the 2014 murder of Chemistry Institute boss Janko Jamnik.
LJUBLJANA - Slavko Koroš was reassigned to another "appropriate" senior post in the police force after he served as the deputy director of the Criminal Police Department. The police said the planned reassignment was not related to the opinions Koroš had expressed as the head of the Association of Criminal Police Officers.
THURSDAY, 13 August
BLED - Slovenia and the US signed a joint declaration on safety of 5G networks as US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo paid a visit. Pompeo said the tide was turning against the Chinese Communist Party, which is trying to control people and other economies. The declaration excludes "untrusted vendors" from 5G networks, which will "benefit the people of this country and all of us who share information across complex network systems".
BLED - Prime Minister Janez Janša called for a new election in Belarus under the presence of international observers as the only solution to the situation in Belarus, an approach also supported by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo as he visited Slovenia. "The only peaceful solution to the current crisis in Belarus is to repeat elections under the strong presence of international observation missions," Janša said.
LJUBLJANA - The NLB Group generated EUR 73.7 million in net profit in the first half of the year, a decrease of EUR 20.7 million or 22% year-on-year. The group's operations were affected by the Covid-19 epidemic, but the supervisory board said that despite impairments and provisions the group's operations were stable and profitable.
LJUBLJANA - After remaining stable at a fairly low level, coronavirus infections in Slovenia spiked with 31 cases reported for Tuesday and 29 for Wednesday, for a total of 109 in a week. Many of the new cases were in holidaymakers returning from Croatian, promoting health authorities to suggest stricter measures may have to be introduced on the border, including potentially mandatory quarantine for arrivals from Croatia.
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