Foreign Minister Miro Cerar and State Secretary Dobran Božič received on Wednesday Irish Minister of State for European Affairs Helen McEntee to assess the relations between Slovenia and Ireland as excellent and to discuss topical political issues, including Brexit and the Western Balkans.

The parliamentary Commission for Slovenians Abroad has recommended to the government to raise the issue of funding of the Slovenian printed media and books and promote their systemic funding when meeting regional and national authorities of the countries populated by Slovenian ethnic communities.

The Social Democratic Party of Croatia (SDP) has picked Barbara Antolić Vupora, a member of the Slovenian minority in the country, as one of its 12 candidates for the European Parliament election in May.

Slovenian police officers detected a total of 9,149 illegal crossings of the state border last year, which is almost a five-fold increase compared to the year before (1,934). The biggest increase was recorded with the citizens of Pakistan, the police and the Interior Ministry have announced on their websites.

Police have apprehended two Bulgarian citizens who were breaking in ATMs across Slovenia, stealing around EUR 6,000. The two perpetrators face up to five years in prison on at least four counts of grand theft, the Ljubljana Police Department said.

The SBI TOP index of the Ljubljana Stock Exchange added 0.32% to 842.83 points in mixed trading on Wednesday. The bulk of the turnover, EUR 310,000 out of a total of EUR 0.5m, fell to pharma company Krka, which shed 0.34%.

The public healthcare fund, the ZZZS, ended 2018 above plans, generating a surplus of EUR 32m on EUR 2.89bn in revenue, which was EUR 207m higher than the year before, mostly on the back of favourable trends in mandatory healthcare insurance revenue, show the ZZZS's preliminary data.