What follows is a weekly review of events involving Slovenia, as prepared by the STA.
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FRIDAY, 26 November
LJUBLJANA - Travellers arriving in Slovenia from areas with the new coronavirus variant that the WHO has declared to be of concern face mandatory quarantine on arriving in Slovenia under a decision taken by the government. Entry is banned to foreigners without a residence permit in Slovenia arriving from those areas.
LJUBLJANA - The government made a few changes to Covid restrictions, including detailing rules for open-air Christmas fairs, which will have to be fenced off with separate entrances and exits. Open-air stalls serving food and drinks need to put up notices limiting customer numbers.
BRUSSELS, Belgium - EU ministers in charge of research adopted conclusions on new governance of the European Research Area (ERA) and a three-year action plan, which Slovenian Minister of Education, Science and Sport Simona Kustec hailed as an important milestone for European science and a major achievement of Slovenia's EU presidency.
LJUBLJANA - EU environment ministers endorsed the further implementation of the EU Urban Agenda by adopting the Ljubljana Agreement. Slovenia's initiative to include small and medium-sized cities in policy-making processes was also successful.
LJUBLJANA - A police inquiry found that officers acted lawfully when they used various types of force during a 5 October riot by opponents of vaccination and the Covid pass mandate in Ljubljana. The commission, appointed by Police Commissioner Anton Olaj, did however identify certain irregularities in the use of tear gas.
LJUBLJANA - The Supreme Court annulled the verdict in the Balkan Warrior drug trafficking case and ordered a retrial, and the defendants, including the chief defendant Dragan Tošić, were released. The court of first instance will now have only two years to process the case before it becomes statute barred.
LJUBLJANA - The government approved a draft agreement on the basis of which 13 Slovenian feature films currently kept at the Yugoslav Cinematheque in Belgrade, Serbia, will return to Slovenia. The classics, including the first Slovenian feature sound film On Our Own Land (1948), had been sent to Belgrade because Slovenia did not have an adequate storage facility.
TRIESTE, Italy - Slovenian literary historian and academician Boris Paternu died at the age of 95. His expertise was Slovenian literature of the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, while he also extensively studied the poetry of Slovenia's greatest poet France Prešeren.
SATURDAY, 27 November
LJUBLJANA - The Marjan Šarec List (LMŠ) of the previous prime minister endorsed its election manifesto and platform at a virtual congress setting out solutions which they say should restore a normality in Slovenia and pave the way for a development breakthrough. Marjan Šarec said the next government would have its work cut out fixing the consequences of the current rule.
LJUBLJANA - New Slovenia (NSi) met for a virtual congress in preparation for next year's general election where their leader Matej Tonin said the Christian democratic party should get the mandate to form a government in order to avoid the "inefficiency" of the centre-left and the "sharpness" of the SDS, the NSi's partner in the current coalition.
LJUBLJANA - The national advisory committee on immunization recommended a booster shot of a vaccine against Covid-19 to all adults, after initially recommending boosters for several most vulnerable groups, including everyone over 50.
NIZHNY TAGIL, Russia - Slovenian women ski jumpers secured their first ever double victory in the individual World Cup event. Ema Klinec won the second event of the season after finishing as the runner-up at the same venue yesterday. Her teammate Urša Bogataj placed second.
SUNDAY, 28 November
BELGRADE, Serbia - Visiting Belgrade as part of the preparations for the next summit of the Brdo-Brijuni Process, President Borut Pahor met his Serbian counterpart Aleksandar Vučić. Pahor said that the process of EU enlargement to the Western Balkans was too slow, which led to renewed policies of nationalism and border changes that threaten security.
RUKA, Finland - A day after fishing second at the men's Ski Jumping World Cup event, Slovenian ski jumper Anže Lanišek won the second such event at Finland's ski resort this season in what is his first World Cup individual event victory.
MONDAY, 29 November
PRISHTINA, Kosovo - President Borut Pahor called for headway in the Prishtina-Belgrade dialogue as he held talks with Kosovo President Vjosa Osmani and PM Albin Kurti. He endorsed Kosovo's efforts to join Euro-Atlantic organisations and urged the country to continue adopting and implementing reforms, while emphasising the need to implement the Kosovo-Serbia agreements reached so far.
BRUSSELS, Belgium - The European Parliament's Civil Liberties Committee (LIBE) discussed a report on a mission to Slovenia it completed in October. The debate saw a heated exchange between Slovenian MEP Romana Tomc, who said the mission had missed the mark, and chair Sophie in 't Veld, who dismissed the criticism and urged the EPP to cooperate constructively.
LJUBLJANA - Montenegrin Speaker Aleksa Bečić started a three-day visit to Slovenia by holding talks with his Slovenian counterpart Igor Zorčič. The pair discussed primarily Montenegro's European prospects, with Zorčič saying that as the presiding EU country, Slovenia was committed to accelerating the EU enlargement process in cooperation with Western Balkan countries.
BRUSSELS, Belgium - In response to the coronavirus pandemic, EU education ministers adopted recommendations on blended learning approaches which combine school site and other physical environments away from the school as well as digital and non-digital learning tools.
LJUBLJANA - The Legal Network for the Protection of Democracy, an NGO, presented amendments to the communicable diseases act after parts of the law were found in breach of the constitution and the National Assembly failed to amend them by the deadline imposed by the Constitutional Court. Efforts were launched to get deputy groups to support the bill.
LJUBLJANA - The Programming Council of RTV Slovenija confirmed the public broadcaster's production plan for 2022, which had been met with criticism from the broadcaster's news staff because several news shows are being cancelled and some moved to the lower-rated second channel. In a secret ballot, 17 councillors voted in favour, two were against and five abstained.
BRUSSELS, Belgium - The Slovenian Press Agency (STA) is one of the 16 European press agencies to join forces in a common European press centre whose creation was announced by the European Commission. The pan-European Newsroom will be supported with EUR 1.76 million in EU funds and coordinated by the German news agency dpa.
LJUBLJANA - Telekom Slovenije, the state-owned telecoms operator, announced it will quit the electricity retail business as of New Year's, the second company to leave the retail market in the last few months amidst surging electricity prices. Telekom has a 2% share of the household market.
TUESDAY, 30 November
LJUBLJANA - PM Janez Janša spoke with his Austrian counterpart Alexander Schallenberg via videoconference about the Covid-19 pandemic, including the new Omicron strain of coronavirus, to note the importance of booster vaccine shots. They assessed the epidemiological situation and exchanged information about measures aimed at managing Covid-19 and their effects.
LJUBLJANA - A commission appointed to examine the death of a 20-year-old woman after she was given the Janssen vaccine in September announced its unanimous assessment that the death was "definitely linked" to the vaccination. The investigation confirmed the vaccination led to the thrombotic thrombocytopenia.
LJUBLJANA - President Borut Pahor warned against politicisation of police as he addressed a ceremony remembering the 1989 Operation North, a police campaign which prevented a Serbian nationalist rally in Ljubljana. He said depoliticisation of police started at the time of Operation North and was one of the milestones in Slovenia's independence process.
BRUSSELS, Belgium - The EU ministers in charge of sport endorsed the European model of sport that calls for solidarity, open competition and accessibility of sport for all. Slovenian Minister of Education, Science and Sport Simona Kustec said the adoption of the resolution was a "historic day for sport and the European Union".
LJUBLJANA - Slovenia's GDP grew at an annual rate of 5% in the third quarter of 2021. Just like in the previous quarter, it was largely fuelled by household consumption, up by 9.3%, and gross capital formation, up 9.6%, the Statistics Office said.
LJUBLJANA - Slovenia's annual inflation rate accelerated to 4.6% in November from 3% in the month before, the highest it has been since late 2008, on the back of higher prices of oil derivatives. At the monthly level prices were up by 0.7%.
WEDNESDAY, 1 December
RIGA, Latvia - Following a two-day NATO ministerial, FM Anže Logar said the developments after the withdrawal from Afghanistan had come as a surprise and had brought up numerous risks that needed to be properly addressed. When planning future missions, goals should be laid out in advance according to regional characteristics, he noted.
LJUBLJANA - Interior Minister Aleš Hojs rejected allegations by NGOs that Slovenian police officers were engaged in pushbacks on the Slovenian border in an interview with the newspaper Delo, while he criticised Croatian police for giving migrants instructions to ask for international protection in Slovenia.
ROME, Italy - The Italian Chamber of Deputies put into law a government decree on the transfer of National Hall in Trieste thus giving the go ahead for the process to start to return it to the Slovenian community there. The return was agreed during last year's ceremony marking the centennial of the torching of the building by the Fascists.
LJUBLJANA - The Administration for Civil Protection and Disaster Relief officially set up an RescEU stockpile of protective personal equipment. The first batch of face masks has been already received, and in 2022, the reserve is expected to provide supplies of protective masks, gloves, coats, aprons, goggles and visors.
LJUBLJANA - The government will allocate an additional EUR 210 million to agriculture in 2023-2027, on top of the EUR 100 million promised in the summer under an agreement reached as agricultural organisations met with PM Janez Janša and Agriculture Minister Jože Podgoršek.
LJUBLJANA - The State Prosecutorial Council expressed strong opposition to the proposed amendments that would give the government greater say in the appointment of Slovenian prosecutors delegated to the European Public Prosecutor's Office (EPPO), saying that this allowed for "inadmissible political staffing."
LJUBLJANA - Electronic tolling for cars was officially rolled out. Annual e-vignettes for cars and semi-annual e-vignettes for motorbikes became available immediately, with weekly and monthly e-vignettes to follow in February 2022.
PARIS, France - The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) substantially upgraded Slovenia's economic growth forecast. It projects the economy to expand by 5.9% this year, up from its May forecast of 3.5%, whereas the outlook for 2022 was revised by 0.8 percentage points to 5.4%. Growth is projected to slow to 3.2% in 2023.
THURSDAY, 2 December
BRDO PRI KRANJU - Interior Minister Aleš Hojs said after a meeting of home affairs officials from the EU and the Western Balkans that they had agreed on the need to improve the exchange of information and cooperation on the ground in the combat against organised crime and terrorism and managing of migration.
LJUBLJANA - The government adopted a new version of the national foreign policy strategy, which takes into account new challenges, particularly hybrid threats and other crises. The document, titled Slovenia: Safe, Successful and Respected in the World - Foreign Policy of the Republic of Slovenia, is a revised and updated version of the country's strategy endorsed in July 2015, said the Government Communication Office.
BRUSSELS, Belgium - EU member states confirmed the common agricultural policy (CAP) for 2023-2027 to make the CAP greener, fairer and more transparent at a session chaired by Slovenian Agriculture Minister Jože Podgoršek, who said the new CAP was a milestone in the EU's agricultural policy.
STOCKHOLM, Sweden - Attending a session of the OSCE Ministerial Council, Foreign Minister Anže Logar advocated the restoration of mutual trust and strengthening of political will of the organisation's members.
STRASBOURG, France - President Borut Pahor attended a ceremony remembering Valery Giscard d'Estaing, who served as the president of France from 1974 to 1981 and is remembered for his role in the Convention on the Future of Europe, which concluded its work in 2003 by drafting the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe.
LJUBLJANA - Lovro Šturm, former minister, Constitutional Court judge in the 1990s and professor emeritus at the Ljubljana Faculty of Law, died aged 83. In 2000 he served as minister of education and sport in the Andrej Bajuk government and in 2004-2008 as justice minister in the first Janez Janša government.
LJUBLJANA - The government endorsed the decision of the council of UKC Ljubljana, Slovenia's largest medical centre, to appoint acting director Jože Golobič for a full term.
