STA, 20 May 2022 - Comic book artist Izar Lunaček was conferred on Thursday the French Order of Arts and Letters. He received the honour for his contribution to the promotion of comic books, the popularisation of French culture in Slovenia and the strengthening of ties between France and Slovenia this field.

The French Institute in Slovenia said Lunaček, who received the knight grade of the order, has become one of the most important advocates of French-Slovenian relations in the field of comics over the last 15 years.

Hier soir à la Résidence de France, décoration du bédéiste #IzarLunaček au rang de Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres ? pour son travail colossal en faveur de la coopération franco-slovène ???? dans le domaine du 9ème art ✍?

Félicitations !@SLOinFRA @IFParis @CiteBd #Stripolis pic.twitter.com/sf06A0YJKY

— Institut français SI (@IFSlovenie) May 20, 2022

In addition to his prolific artistic activity, the 43-year-old has spent a decade at the helm of the Stripolis association, a major factor in the promotion of comics among the general public.

The Tinta Festival, formerly Stripolisfest, which he co-founded, is now an unmissable event for professionals and experts as well as enthusiasts.

Lunaček, who was also one of the forerunners of the concept of the Drawn Concert in Slovenia, is a great connoisseur of the Angouleme International Comics Festival in France where he has established precious ties with French authors and publishers there.

In 2020, Stripolis became a publishing house that has already published several Slovenian translations of French comic books.

Lunaček, who is moreover painter, comparativist and philosopher, received the honour from French Ambassador to Slovenia Florence Ferrari.

STA, 14 April 2022 - The low-cost carrier Transavia France, a member of Air France KLM group, launched twice-weekly flights between Paris Orly and Ljubljana on Thursday, joining Air France, which operates daily flights between Ljubljana and Charles de Gaulle.

Transavia France will fly Tuesdays and Thursdays with a Boeing 737-800. The first flight was almost fully booked.

Janez Krašnja, head of airline management, said the airport was glad to have two airlines operating flights to Paris.

"We sincerely hope that the epidemiological situation will make it possible to make this route a permanent feature," he said.

The arrival of Transavia France increases the number of airlines operating flights to Ljubljana to 15.

Krašnja said the number of tourists going through the Jože Pučnik Ljubljana Airport was increasing.

While flights to Moscow, St. Petersburg and Kyiv have been cancelled due to war, Turkish Airlines will increase the frequency to ten flights a week and FlyDubai plans to introduce daily flights to Dubai in the summer.

Last year the airport handled 420,000 passengers. This year the figure is planned to at least double absent new shake-ups due to Covid-19 or other crises.

STA, 31 March 2022 - Robert Waltl, the director of the Mini Teater theatre and the Jewish Cultural Centre in Ljubljana, has received the Order of the Arts and Letters of France (Ordre des Arts et des Lettres) for "deepening ties between Slovenia and France and promoting mutual respect and combating all forms of discrimination."

The French Institute in Slovenia has announced that the knight grade of the order had been presented to Waltl on Wednesday by French Ambassador Florence Ferrari on behalf of the French minister of culture.

The institute said that Waltl had earned the accolade for his work in arts that deepens ties between Slovenia and France and for opening the repertoire of Mini Teater to French productions, also in his roles as an actor and director in the theatre.

The director of Mini Teater is also promoting mutual respect and combating all forms of discrimination, especially as the initiator of the House of Tolerance festival, it added.

Waltl has furthermore invested his efforts in establishing and developing the Jewish Cultural Centre, an "exceptionally important cultural institution in Ljubljana that preserves Jewish cultural life as well as the memory of suffering, including the Holocaust, while calling for respect for others and peaceful coexistence."

In theatre, he has created a strong network of connections with France through good relations with many French authors and institutions, and he has performed in several plays that encompass the production from the era of Classicism to the present day.

As a great Francophone and Francophile, Waltl has been an irreplaceable factor in the French-Slovenian relations for many years, the institute added.

Related: The Return of Jewish Ljubljana in the Story of Two Men

STA, 29 April 2021 - Prime Minister Janez Janša met French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris on Thursday to discuss the countries' successive presidencies of the Council of the EU. Macron said before the talks that coordination was needed because of the extraordinary circumstances in which the two countries will hold the presidency.

The French president said before meeting Janša that the Slovenian and French presidencies would be held in exceptional circumstances as Europe is dealing with the coronavirus pandemic and trying to avoid an economic crisis. "That is why we need to be perfectly coordinated," he said.

According to Macron, Europe must stay united in dealing with the health crisis. Noting that vaccination would enable a careful return to the normal life, he called for more investment in the development and production of vaccines.

The president also expressed hope that the process of adopting national recovery plans and the ratification of the legislation enabling financing would be concluded by summer.

He said he would discuss with Janša the priorities of Slovenia's EU presidency, bilateral relations and regional issues, especially in the Western Balkans and the EU's neighbourhood.

Janša said Slovenia and France cooperated in many areas, from economy to culture and sports, sharing the same views on most issues as part of the EU.

Merci @EmmanuelMacron pour ta généreuse hospitalité. Nous avons redit combien étaient fortes les relation entre la Slovénie et la France et confirmé que nous ouvrerons ensemble étroitement pendant nous deux présidences du Conseil qui se suivent. ?? ?? pic.twitter.com/AzttitLsEx

— Janez Janša (@JJansaSDS) April 29, 2021

He noted that the two countries had signed an agreement on strategic partnership ten years ago.

France is one of the most important economic partners of Slovenia, with trade in goods reaching EUR 3 billion before the pandemic, and trade in services half a billion, Janša said, calling for more French investment in Slovenia.

He said the main priority of Slovenia's EU presidency would be to boost the EU's resilience to crises such as pandemics and cyber attacks. He also mentioned speeding up efforts for EU enlargement to the Western Balkans.

Janša stressed there were many obstacles in this respect that needed to be overcome. He pointed to the EU's commitment made at the summit in Thessaloniki, Greece, in 2003, which guaranteed an EU future to Western Balkan countries when they meet the conditions for membership.

"That is the only prospective positive solution for the region that we see ahead," Janša was quoted as saying by his office.

The Slovenian EU presidency in the second half of 2021 and the French EU presidency in the first half of 2022 will also be connected through the conference of the future of the EU. Janša said most of the debates would be held during Slovenia's stint and expressed hope France would wrap up the conference successfully.

Janša's office said that the prime minister had also expressed condolences to the family of the French police officer Stephanie Monferme, who was killed last week, noting that "we will fight together for zero tolerance to terror".

The prime minister also invited Macron to Slovenia for the celebration of the country's 30th independence anniversary.

The covers and editorials from leading weeklies of the Left and Right for the work-week ending Friday, 22 April 2021. All our stories about coronavirus and Slovenia are here

Mladina: SMC to end its agony in coalition

STA, 23 April 2021 - Mladina says in its latest commentary that the Modern Centre Party (SMC) is on its last legs, including its leader and Economy Minister Zdravko Počivalšek. The party is in agony as it is missing on the opportunity to leave the coalition of Janez Janša on time and save at least some of its credibility.

"Are they aware at all how humiliating is that they publicly mull Počivalšek resigning as minister and returning for a few days to parliament so that a new speaker gets elected, and then he would let himself be appointed minister again - which he himself would vote for?" the left-leaning weekly says under the headline It's Time, SMC.

What is more, the coalition does not want to give the group of unaffiliated former MPs of the SMC and Pensioners' Party (DeSUS) seats in parliamentary working bodies, although it is there where actual debates on bills take place.

"The fundamental question is: do they really think that the public does not see this agony? Such a position is unbearable for a normal person. The agony can be seen on the faces of all DeSUS deputies and ministers and the remaining SMC deputies."

According to Mladina, the things have gone too far and the SMC, or what has remained of the party that in 2014 achieved the greatest result in the history of Slovenian parliamentary democracy, will need to think whether it is better to end things at some point.

"Will they go on and play independent deputies for the SDS and Janša? What about parliamentary procedures?" the weekly wonders, noting that public opinion polls also show that the things have gone too far and they should not be relativised.

"The SMC, its president and leadership still have an actual opportunity to stop things, exit the coalition and trigger an early election. By doing so, they would gain at least some moral capital so that they will be able to live normally."

Demokracija: France overrun by Islam

STA, 22 April 2021 - The right-wing magazine Demokracija opines in Thursday's editorial that France is a bellwether for Europe in the sense that Islam is replacing Christianity, arguing that "the great replacement" is under way accompanied by "the forced destruction of traditional European values".

"What's happening to the heirs of Joan of Arc and Charles Martel happens in a few years (more or less) elsewhere," the paper says in the commentary Cathedral Basilica of Saint Cecilia in Albi.

"France was the first country in Western Europe to officially open to the Arab world and Islamic culture, it was the first where Muslims [...] violently occupied streets during prayers, the first where Arabs started the 'culture' of torching cars."

The paper says these scenes are now seen in core EU countries such as Germany, Netherlands, Belgium and Sweden, whereas the resistance of countries such as Poland, Hungary and Slovenia, "who do not want imported violence and barbarian cultures on their streets", is designated as a departure from democracy, a curtailing of freedom.

"This is one reason why these countries are being served numerous scandals and fabricated stories - all with the intention to take them down and install Play-Doh dummies pliable to progressive and multicultural kneading.

"It is in this light that one should interpret the famous and fabricated 'non-paper' about alleged redrawing of borders in Bosnia-Herzegovina, which domestic and foreign leftist activists, politicians and journalists [...] have tried schemingly to plant on Janez Janša."

All our posts in this series are here

STA, 29 March 2021 - The Slovenian subsidiary of the French car interior components maker Treves is to be shut down in September, which means a hundred people will be left jobless. The announcement comes after the plant based in the village of near Trebnje was hit by a massive fire in January.

The decision to withdraw from Slovenia after 16 years was recently made by the core company in France and Treves CEO Andrej Baškovič confirmed the news for the STA on Monday.

According to unofficial information obtained by the STA, the decision is related to the damage caused by the January fire and the Novo Mesto-based Revoz, one of Treves's main clients, securing only mid-term orders for the Renault Twingo model guaranteed, while its fate after 2024 is not known.

In line with a statement from the French company Treves SA, obtained by the STA, the plant in Slovenia will be shut down because of poor business prospects. The core company also decided not to renovate the factory after the January fire.

The company employs 102 people and will be shut down in September.

MAP

Treves pledged to take measures to reduce the negative impact on workers as much as possible. Information on the number of dismissed workers, the date of lay-offs and possible measures will be presented after talks with all stakeholders.

The employees were informed of the plant closure on Thursday, Treves said.

In January, a blaze engulfed the majority of the Treves building, damaging a part of the production lines for car carpets and sound insulation, as well as offices, with parts of the roof also caving in.

After the fire, a part of production was temporarily moved to a sister company in Spain. The supply to Treves's buyers in Slovenia, Austria, France, Italy and Slovakia was restored in three weeks.

Baškovič announced renovation of the parts of the factory affected by the fire at the time, as the company does not own the building.

A plan for renovation was said to have been in the making and the renovation was being discussed with the owner of the facility. Baškovič assessed at the time that production was to be fully restored in a few months.

The company lost half of its facilities, virtually all of its machines and almost all raw materials to the fire. Most of the tools were destroyed or damaged and had to be repaired to restore regular supply to the company's clients.

The CEO assessed the damage caused by the fire, which also led to a four-day suspension of production at Revoz, at several million euro.

STA, 6 July 2020 - The government has re-instated France and the Czech Republic, with the exception of the Moravian-Silesian Region, to the green list of the epidemiologically safe countries, with the decision effective as of Tuesday.

Announcing the news, the Government Communication Office said that the decision had been made following a briefing on the Covid-19 situation in the two countries by the National Public Health Institute.

France and the Czech Republic were put on the so-called yellow list along with Croatia on Saturday. The Moravian-Silesian Region in the east of the Czech Republic remains on the list.

Slovenian citizens and foreigners with permanent or temporary residence in Slovenia arriving from yellow-listed EU or Schengen zone members are not quarantined under certain conditions.

These include proving they own a piece of property or a vessel there or producing an original bill for accommodation etc.

If they are not able to prove this, they are considered as arriving in Slovenia from a high-risk country and subjected to two-week quarantine.

Slovenian citizens and foreigners with permanent or temporary residence in Slovenia arriving from green-listed EU or Schengen zone members are not quarantined.

Persons who have temporary or permanent residence in these countries are free to enter Slovenia without any restrictions or quarantine either.

More details on the green, yellow and red lists here - but be sure to click the links for updates

STA, 2 July 2020 - Croatia, France and Czechia will be removed on Saturday from the green list of countries considered epidemiologically safe by Slovenia, government coronavirus spokesperson Jelko Kacin said on Thursday. Belgium and the Netherlands will on the other hand be green-listed. Kacin also announced efforts to serve quarantine orders already on the border.

Being put on the yellow list means that most foreign citizens arriving in Slovenia from these countries need to subject themselves to a two-week quarantine, while this does not apply to Slovenians [ed. or those with a residence card] returning from yellow-listed countries.

Kacin said that the SarS-CoV-2 situation was improving in some countries, in particular in western Europe, with the the number of infected persons falling below 10 per 100,000 inhabitants. This is why Belgium and the Netherlands will be put on the green list.

However, there are also countries where things are deteriorating, which is why the government is to decide at today's correspondence session that Croatia, Czechia and France be put on the yellow list, effective Saturday.

Kacin said that Slovenians returning from Croatia will not have to go into isolation, but he stressed they would be asked at the border if they are really returning from Croatia and not from other Western Balkan countries that are on the red list and entail quarantine in Slovenia also for Slovenian citizens.

"There has been too much misleading. Police will get instructions and our travellers should get ready to reveal a little more about where they have been," Kacin said, explaining it will also be necessary to provide evidence.

He again urged against travel to Serbia, North Macedonia, Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina or Kosovo, where the virus is spreading fast. "Everywhere where they had elections and election rallies, the number of infected persons is rising," he added.

As for Croatian citizens planning a holiday in Slovenia, Kacin said that bookings made before Saturday will allow a holiday without quarantine.

Kacin moreover announced the government would examine today the border regime with a focus on putting in place conditions for the effective serving of quarantine orders and strict controls at entry points into Slovenia.

"The government will do all it can so that these quarantine orders are served already on the border to prevent delays and have everybody informed - the National Institute of Public Health, the Health Ministry, the health inspection and, if needed, the police as well," Kacin said, explaining those affected will have to drive directly to their quarantine location.

Referring to administrative rules that have been preventing an effective serving of quarantine orders and thereby enforcement, he said "it will no longer be the case that the quarantine passes before people even receive the order". He added the relevant ministries and other institutions have until Saturday to organise and adapt.

Kacin said more oversight will also be necessary at health institutions and nursing homes and that instructions will be sent out on Friday on how to avoid infections there.

He did not directly comment on Moravče Mayor Milan Balažic issuing today a decree that prohibits any public gatherings as well as private parties or Church mass in this municipality north-east of Ljubljana.

He said the government is trying to prevent the entering of the virus from abroad, expecting the measures to be effective and thus eliminate any need for individual mayors to take action. "But if such gatherings are really happening in their territory, we understand people's concern," Kacin added.

STA, 16 July 2019 - Orpea, a French multinational that specialises in assisted living services, has entered the Slovenian market via its Austrian subsidiary Senecura by purchasing a retirement home in Radenci, eastern Slovenia, called Dosor.

Senecura purchased the facility earlier this year from Radenci municipality and the Austrian bad bank Heta and plans to use it as a springboard for Slovenia, having previously acquired the licence to build several small retirement homes around the country with a total of 310 beds.

The company, the biggest private operator of retirement homes in Austria, acquired Dosor because of the quality of care it provides, favourable location and its reputation in Slovenia, Senecura board member Anton Kellner told the press on Tuesday.

Radenci municipality sold its 50% stake for EUR 1.5 million, while the rest was acquired with the purchase of Heta's EUR 7.6 million in claims to Dosor.

Dosor has 178 beds and 100 employees. It was built as a public-private project in 2008.

Together with the planned network of small retirement homes, the acquisition puts Senecura on track to compete with the biggest Slovenian private provider of elderly care, Deos, which has eight facilities in Slovenia.

There are currently over 100 elderly care facilities in Slovenia offering just over 20,000 places, most of which are publicly owned and operated by municipalities.

All our stories on the elderly in Slovenia are here

STA, 2 July 2019 - Foreign Minister Miro Cerar and his French counterpart Jean-Yves Le Drian signed in Paris on Tuesday a new action plan for a strategic partnership between the two countries in the 2019-2022 period. The pair also broached the appointment process for the EU's top posts and the Western Balkans, the Foreign Ministry said.

Nov Akcijski načrt strateškega partnerstva med ?? in ?? za obdobje 2019-2022 je podpisan. Načrt bo dodatno oplemenitil in dal nov zagon sodelovanju Slovenije in Francije na številnih področjih. V nadaljevanju dneva se bom sestal še z generalnim sekretarjem @OECD @A_Gurria. pic.twitter.com/v5DHNJL61m

— dr. Miro Cerar (@MiroCerar) July 2, 2019

Cerar said the new agreement would enrich existing cooperation and provide a new momentum. He noted it also covered the time when Slovenia and France would successively preside over the EU in 2021 and 2022.

Cerar is confident the action plan, which focuses on cooperation in science and innovation, information, communication technology and AI, will contribute to closer economic cooperation, with France already being Slovenia no. 5 trading partner.

The Foreign Ministry added that an important part of the talks had been dedicated to the strengthening of multilateralism. France plays a key role here as a permanent member of the UN Security Council.

The pair also talked about current European topics, notably the Western Balkans. Cerar stressed the region needed to be given a European future and urged a clear and credible answer by October as regards the launch of EU accession negotiations with North Macedonia and Albania.

Also broached were migration, terrorism and climate change, with Cerar calling for European solutions to migration issues.

Meanwhile, the head of the Slovenian diplomacy also met OECD secretary general Angel Gurria. Cerar explained Slovenia wanted to use its preparations for the EU presidency in 2021 to examine topics where it can work closer with the OECD.

??FM ⁦@MiroCerar⁩ met with SG ⁦@OECD⁩ @A_Gurria⁩ to discuss cooperation btw #Slovenia and OECD in the field of #DigitalTransformation, #AI, development, education, ageing, #circulareconomy. ⁦@SLOtoOECD⁩ #Paris pic.twitter.com/PleziBEOzh

— SLOVENIAN MFA (@MZZRS) July 2, 2019

Slovenia is already participating in an OECD expert group on AI and has participated in the drafting of OECD recommendations in the this field, the first such document on the global level.

Next year, the country will host an OECD summit that will serve as a chance for a debate on lifelong learning in a time when society and the economy are undergoing a digital transformation, the ministry wrote.

Cerar also met the chairs of the European Affairs Committees of the French parliament's lower and upper houses, Sabine Thillaye and Jean Bizet, respectively. He also discussed European topics and areas covered by the action plan with them.

All our stories on France are here