The covers and editorials from leading weeklies of the Left and Right for the work-week ending Friday, 10 December 2021. All our stories about coronavirus and Slovenia are here
Mladina: Doctors in Slovenia
STA, 10 December 2021 - Under the headline Doctors, Mladina's latest commentary looks at the lack of respect in Slovenia's society, especially of doctors, analysing their calls for changes to the payment system in healthcare and suggesting that they are being exploited by power-hungry elites who want more privatisation.
Mladina's commentary begins by noting the lack of respect and understanding in Slovenia's society, which is being felt by all people, not only doctors, who recently complained about that and about being overworked, while they advocated for better salaries.
"Doctors are finding it difficult to convince the public of the legitimacy of their claims. Their incomes are simply so high that it is hard for citizens to understand these demands. Why can they no longer convince us?" Mladina asks.
"The first problem is the excess income of individual doctors," says the weekly and points to the doctors who exploit the public healthcare system to supplement their incomes with private-sector practices.
"Of course, this impression is largely unfair to the majority of doctors: most have not usurped the public system in order to shamelessly exploit it, the vast majority are actually working hard."
But although it might seem like it, these doctors are not fighting for the public healthcare payment system, Mladina says, adding that their hardships will actually be exploited to justify further privatisation of healthcare and raising the highest salaries.
"All of this is obscene in the eyes of citizens - but that does not make the frustrations and hardships of doctors any less real, while this situation only suits those holding power in the medical ranks, as they slowly grab hold of the system piece by piece."
"The public has so far always shown that it wants to take the doctors' side, but they can no longer look the other way if they want public support. The battles against these anomalies are also their battles, which they have been avoiding thus far," concludes the commentary.
Demokracija: Inclusive language guidelines
STA, 9 December 2021 - Demokracija says in its latest editorial that it is completely irrelevant whether the European Commission has pulled the internal guidelines on inclusive language temporarily or fully, as the fact is that something like that should have never been proposed in the first place.
"Europe has not seen such an attack on Christianity since 1991, when the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe adopted the disgraceful recommendation - Contribution of the Islamic civilisation to European culture," the weekly says.
Pointing to the document presented by Commissioner for Equality Helena Dalli, Demokracija says that "these are no guidelines, but a pamphlet of a political agenda aimed at forcibly suppressing and destroying all the traditional and fundamental values of Europe".
Labelling Europe as the "most wonderful civilisation of all time", the weekly says that making interventions "in this reality and trying to erase history can only be the work of evil people".
Demokracija believes that the withdrawal of the guidelines is really only temporary and strategic, as "sooner or later they will push them through somewhere" in opposition not only to the Christian nature, but human nature in general.
"Dalli has repeatedly made it clear that she is the enemy of indigenous European nations, the heterosexual family and Christianity," the weekly adds under the headline Have a Nice Trip to the Pinkish Farout.
The reaction to the opposition to the guidelines was expected: reactionary, conservative and far-right forces are at work, the weekly says, while arguing that it was actually people with common sense who have raised their voice.
These people do not want to experiment with God's creations and traditional values, but the progressives have taken the familiar position that argues that the discourse of the former is violent and hostile.
"Normal Europeans, what is left of them, should now finally wake up and, despite their fatigue, stop allowing the madness in Brussels to continue to grow. It has all gone too far," concludes the commentary.
All our posts in this series are here
