The winner of the 32nd Kresnik Prize for best novel of the year, given out by the publisher Delo, is Roman Rozina. He convinced the jury with his historical novel Sto Let Slepote (Hundred Years of Blindness), portraying the Knap family and the rise and fall of mining in the 20th century.

The government adopted Thursday two regulations to temporarily abolish two environmental duties on diesel at service stations on the motorway network, where prices are fully liberalised. The measure to lower the price of diesel to help hauliers will take effect on Friday, while retailers are expected to adjust their margins in a few days.

Prime Minister Robert Golob expressed the hope that EU leaders will reach a consensus on giving Bosnia-Herzegovina candidate country status at Thursday's summit as he dismissed reports by some media that Slovenia is willing to block Ukraine's bid to achieve that.

The government has replaced members of the supervisory boards of nine hospitals due to the institutions' poor financial performance and will carry out a special audit to see how they continue to post losses despite receiving hundreds of millions of euros in extra funding last year.

The European Commission has opened an in-depth investigation to assess Hungarian energy group MOL's purchase of service stations of OMV Slovenija, the second largest such network in Slovenia. Brussels is worried that the takeover would severely reduce competition on the Slovenian retail motor fuel market.

Prime Minister Robert Golob will attend a two-day EU summit in Brussels that begins on Thursday and focuses on the EU's eastward and south-eastward enlargement. Golob intends to push for candidate status for Bosnia-Herzegovina in line with his announcement last week.