New restrictions enter into force
Ljubljana, 13 November - New restrictions concerning public gatherings and border crossing enter into force on Friday as part of efforts to curb the spread of coronavirus. The red list of countries has been expanded as well.
Ljubljana
Lockdown takes toll on Slovenia's economy, with a 13% year-on-year contraction in the output in the second quarter of the year.
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All gatherings are banned as of today, unless people who gather are family or members of the same house hold. Until yesterday gatherings were capped to six persons.
While all events are banned, couples will now be able to wed with a special permission from the Ministry of Labour, the Family and Social Affairs. They will not be allowed to have a reception, though.
The new government decree also narrows exemptions from mandatory quarantine for people crossing the border into Slovenia.
Most importantly for Slovenians, a special exemption that allowed owners of property in neighbouring countries to visit for 48 hours without needing to quarantine has been scrapped.
Several exemptions have been narrowed, for example, 72-hour visits to relatives across the border. This exemption will now apply only to visits to EU and Schengen zone countries.
Cross-border migrant workers will now have a 14-hour window to return to Slovenia after going to work in a neighbouring country.
Some types of emergency business and personal visits were exempt from mandatory quarantine for stays of up to 48 hours. This time window has now been narrowed to 12 hours and only emergency business visits are allowed.
Persons who arrive from a red-listed country will still be able to end quarantine prematurely if they get tested, but from today they will need to quarantine for at least five days.
They can still avoid quarantining if they produce a negative test on arrival that was not done more than 48 hours ago.
The vast majority of the world's countries are on Slovenia's red list of countries, and there are some changes concerning European countries.
The entire Italy, Ireland, Liechtenstein and Poland are now on the red list, along with the majority of Denmark (with the exception of Faeroe Islands and Greenland), Lithuania (except Utena), Sweden (except Västernorrland), individual regions of Greece and one Estonian region, Ida-Viru.
Spain remains on the red list but the Canary Islands have been moved to orange.