What follows is a weekly review of events involving Slovenia, as prepared by the STA.
If you’d like to keep up on the daily headlines then follow those here, or get all our stories in your feed on Facebook.
FRIDAY, 26 February
LJUBLJANA - Prime Minister Janez Janša wrote to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen with an invitation for the Commission to appoint a fact-finding mission that would visit Slovenia to get acquainted with the state of democracy, rule of law, independence of the judiciary and media plurality.
LJUBLJANA - Slovenia's GDP dropped 5.5% in real terms last year over the year before, the Statistics Office said. Domestic spending saw a considerable drop, while external demand also suffered a blow.
LJUBLJANA - The Covid-19 lockdown had a significant impact on sales in the services sector and retail in 2020, as it was down by a combined 9.6% compared to the year before, Statistics Office data showed. The drop in the services was 11.6% and in retail 6.2%.
SATURDAY, 27 February
KOPER - Tighter coronavirus restrictions kicked in in the coastal Obalno-Kraška region after the epidemiological situation in the south-west worsened. Gatherings were banned and travel between the region and the rest of Slovenia is restricted to work- and health-related reasons.
OBERSTDORF, Germany - Ski jumper Anže Lanišek won the bronze medal on the normal hill at the FIS Nordic World Ski Championships in Oberstdorf. Gold went to Polish Piotr Zyila, while German Karl Geiger was second.
SUNDAY, 28 February
VELENJE - The Velenje Local Court gave Luka Štitić a two-month suspended sentence with a one year probation period for threatening Prime Minister Janez Janša on social media during last year's anti government protests. The ruling is final.
OBERSTDORF, Germany - Cross-country skiers Anamarija Lampič and Eva Urevc won bronze in the women's team event at the Nordic World Ski Championships in Oberstdorf, Germany. The pair fell short of gold by 3.46 seconds.
MONDAY, 1 March
BRDO PRI KRANJU - Foreign Minister Anže Logar hosted his counterparts from Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia to discuss Slovenia's upcoming EU presidency and the coronavirus pandemic. "The meeting was a great opportunity to present our views and priorities for the presidency so as to harmonise key issues that will be on the EU's agenda," Logar said.
LJUBLJANA - The government adopted a revised vaccination strategy envisaging 61 vaccination centres, including 13 in hospitals. Health Minister Janez Poklukar said on Tuesday priority groups remain the same, with health workers in top tier, followed by people over 80, 75 and 70, and then vulnerable patients with chronic conditions.
LJUBLJANA - Prime Minister Janez Janša indicated Slovenia was not planning public spending cuts, having weathered 2020 better than expected due to stimulus measures. "We're not planning any cuts. We're planning a recovery this year," he told the National Assembly.
KLAGENFURT, Austria - The Slovenian ethnic minority won an absolute majority in the municipality of Globasnitz (Globasnica), where Bernard Sadovnik was also reelected mayor in Sunday's local elections in the state of Carinthia. This is the first time the Slovenian minority United List (EL) party has won an absolute majority in any municipality.
LJUBLJANA - Slovenia has decided to increase aid to Yemen by 20%, pledging a total of EUR 120,000 for 2021-2023, Foreign Ministry State Secretary Stanislav Raščan told a high-level conference on Yemen. The increased contribution means Slovenia will have donated over half a million euro for the aid effort in Yemen since 2016.
LJUBLJANA - Two months after the expiration of public and commercial news service contracts between the STA and the government, the STA restricted access to its news items for the government administration. Parliament Speaker Igor Zorčič said the time had come to resolve the matter in court.
LJUBLJANA - All persons who had been in contact with an individual whose coronavirus infection was confirmed to be the South African variant last week have so far tested negative, the National Institute of Public Health said. The infected doctor had high-risk exposure contacts with four persons who have been ordered to self-isolate.
ŽIRI - Alpina, a footwear maker, said it would reduce its headcount by more than a tenth at its main production location in Žiri after a dismal year marked by store closures and the long shutdown of ski slopes. 18 workers will be made redundant and 20 will either retire or await retirement on the dole.
LJUBLJANA/KOPER - The government approved EUR 1.4 million for promotion of the economic activity of the Italian minority in Slovenia in 2021-2024. The goal is to improve the community's economic potential by nurturing the growth of existing and incorporation of new companies.
TUESDAY, 2 March
LJUBLJANA - Four centre-left opposition parties filed a proposal for the National Assembly to call a consultative referendum on the government-sponsored bill on the National Demographic Fund. The Marjan Šarec List (LMŠ), Social Democrats (SD), Left and the Alenka Bratušek Party (SAB) argue the bill would give the government centralised control over ownership and management of EUR 8.6 billion in state assets.
LJUBLJANA - A new Strategic Council for Foreign Policy, led by Foreign Minister Anže Logar, held its maiden session. It decided the current foreign policy strategy, last adopted in 2015, would be "refreshed". Proposals are currently being drawn up at the ministry.
LJUBLJANA - Justice Minister Lilijana Kozlovič was urged to step down as the opposition is unhappy with her handling of the appointment of Slovenia's two members of the European Public Prosecutor's Office. The development comes after Kozlovič of the junior coalition SMC said her ministry had asked for the proposal of two prosecutors to be put on the government's agenda several times, but received no reply.
LJUBLJANA - The Slovenian central bank said the anti-crisis measures had contributed to the economic recovery and to keeping the country's potential afloat, albeit at the expense of public finances. A gradual approach and targeted withdrawal of measures would be needed so that the economy is not exposed again to negative shocks.
LJUBLJANA - Following the identification of the UK and South African variants in Slovenia, the Nigerian strain of coronavirus has also been confirmed in the country, POP TV reported, adding that seven cases had been detected so far.
LJUBLJANA - Health Minister Janez Poklukar appointed a new medical taskforce that advises the ministry on measures to contain Covid-19. It will be headed by Mateja Logar, an infections diseases specialist at the UKC Ljubljana's department of communicable diseases. She succeeds Bojana Beović, who resigned as she took over as new head of the Medical Chamber, but is staying on as a member.
SOLKAN - Slovenian company Instrumentation Technologies, a provider of advanced instrumentation in the field of basic particles accelerators, was reported acquired by ARX Equity Partners, a private equity group headquartered in Prague. The price was not disclosed.
LJUBLJANA - Telecoms incumbent Telekom Slovenije said it was being sued by the telecommunications company T-2 for around EUR 50 million for the damage that the latter allegedly suffered between September 2018 and July 2020. The claim refers to Telekom's wholesale prices.
WEDNESDAY, 3 March
LJUBLJANA - The government decided all secondary school students who have been learning remotely will return to in-person teaching on 8 March. The change comes after schools reopened in mid-February, but only final-year secondary students returned to classrooms to prepare for school-leaving exams.
LJUBLJANA - Slovenia is planning to start mass vaccination of teachers against Covid-19 next week, Jelko Kacin, the coordinator for the logistics of mass vaccination, announced as he visited a vaccination point in Ljubljana. If everything goes according to plan, Slovenia could administer about 240,000 doses of Covid-19 vaccines in March.
BRUSSELS, Belgium - Three of Slovenia's four MEPs from the European People's Party (EPP) did not back changes to the rules of procedure allowing the European People's Party (EPP) to suspend or exclude a member party from its ranks. Ljudmila Novak, the fourth Slovenian EPP MEP, voted for the changes, having been one of its proponents.
LJUBLJANA - The National Assembly passed legislation enacting Slovenia's EUR 70 million guarantee for the Pan-European Guarantee Fund, a new mechanism of the European Investment Bank designed to help business cope with the effects of the coronavirus pandemic.
LJUBLJANA - The National Assembly passed legislation designed to end fictitious registrations of residence. The amendments to the residence registration act will crack down on fictitious registrations at addresses that are not residential, or residential addresses where the size of the living quarters clearly precludes the registration of a large number of people.
LJUBLJANA - The National Assembly voted 48:38 in favour of amendments to the act governing the STA that require the STA English Service to report on the work of NGO. The English Service already reports on NGOs, but the law on the STA does not stipulate this as an explicit requirement.
MARIBOR - A total of 28 house searches were carried out by the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) in relation to a suspected money laundering scheme worth millions of euros involving shell companies and the withdrawal of large amounts of cash from bank accounts. Several media reported the sting focused on Slovenian tax advisor Rok Snežič.
ŠOŠTANJ - The Šoštanj thermal power plant decided not to introduce co-incineration of non-hazardous waste after the Šoštanj city council voted against it. It will also discontinue a procedure to have its environmental permit changed to allow co-incineration.
THURSDAY, 4 March
LJUBLJANA - It was revealed that media freedom in Slovenia will be one of the items on the European Parliament's agenda as it meets for a plenary next week. The expansion of the agenda was proposed by the S&D, the second largest group in the EP. Although invited, PM Janez Janša and Culture Minister Vasko Simoniti will not take part.
LJUBLJANA - The Slovenian Association of State Prosecutors turned to the Council of Europe (CoE) to complain about "inadmissible pressure" that they say Prime Minister Janez Janša and media that he controls are exerting on prosecutors.
LJUBLJANA - The government decided bars and restaurants in two eastern regions, Posavje and South-east Slovenia, will be able to start serving customers outdoor as of 8 March. Initially, this will be a one-week test to see how things turn out.
LJUBLJANA - The government adopted a reform banking bill, which transposes the provisions of a major EU directive and creates the legal basis for the participation of workers in bank supervisory boards.
LJUBLJANA - Two contractors submitted financial offers for the first part of main works on the Divača-Koper rail section. A consortium led by Slovenian builder Kolektor CPG values the works at EUR 403.6 million, while the offer by Austrian builder Strabag and its consortium is EUR 463.5 million.
LJUBLJANA - The Court of Audit said the government, the Public Administration Ministry and the Office for the Protection of Classified Information were ineffective in providing for cybersecurity in 2016-2019. It points to the government's failure to adopt an information security strategy, as well as to understaffing and underfunding.
