President to pay visit to Austria early next week

Preparing to take over as president, Pirc Musar first met Van der Bellen last December while he was on an official visit to Slovenia, his last during the second presidential term of Borut Pahor.

She now looks forward to meeting the Austrian president in Vienna as she admires his honesty and insightfulness on issues that unite them as statesmen and leaders of two neighbouring and friendly countries, and that are above all important for a beautiful and secure future for the people, the EU and the planet, the president's office said ahead of her visit.

The meeting will focus on climate change, measures to achieve the Paris Agreement targets and the EU's Green Deal, biodiversity preservation and water diplomacy efforts.

The last topic is at the forefront of Slovenia's campaign to become a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council.

The presidents will also discuss current EU issues and the Western Balkans situation. Slovenia and Austria both view the region as a part of Europe and strive to speed up the bloc's enlargement to the Western Balkans.

Pirc Musar will use the meeting as an opportunity to tell Van der Bellen about plans to continue and build on cooperation with countries in the region under the Brdo-Brijuni initiative, the press release reads.

Another topic high on the agenda will be the Ukraine war and the associated rise of disinformation and fake news, which have become part of hybrid warfare.

Special attention will be paid to the situation of the 50,000-strong Slovenian minority in Austria. The community has traditionally lived in Carinthia and Styria, but nowadays Slovenians also live in other parts of Austria, most of them in Vienna, Graz and Salzburg.

Pirc Musar met the minority's representatives in Ljubljana last Thursday to discuss their challenges and rights, which she believes are basic human rights. The representatives underlined efforts to preserve the Slovenian language as the key challenge.

The president supports the community's efforts to improve their situation as soon as possible with measures ensuring quality education in the Slovenian language from kindergarten on, the amendment of the Austrian law on ethnic communities, and the reform of the Austrian bilingual judiciary system.

During his visit to Slovenia last December, Van der Bellen admitted that Austria's treatment of the Slovenian minority is "anything but exemplary", the office said.

Meanwhile, Austria has been pushing for some time now for Slovenia to grant the German-speaking community minority status. Previous President Pahor told Van der Bellen that the community's rights are regulated by a bilateral "cultural agreement", an arrangement that Slovenia is not considering changing.

Relations between Austria and Slovenia are good and friendly, but recently both the Slovenian government and minority in Austria have been disappointed by Austria's decision to yet again extend checks on the border with Slovenia and Hungary that were first put in place during peak refugee crisis in 2015.

Referring to the EU Court's ruling in 2021 that prolonging border controls over the same threat is not compatible with EU law, Slovenia expects Austria to do away with temporary border checks.

Pirc Musar is scheduled to visit Belvedere Museum to see an exhibition on Gustav Klimt as part of her visit, and to meet Slovenians living in Vienna.

Austria is one of Slovenia's most important economic partners. It ranked fourth on the list of Slovenia's most important trading partners last year, official data shows. International trade between the two countries almost reached EUR 8.4 billion in 2022 - Slovenia exported EUR 3.6 billion worth of goods to Austria, while importing EUR 4.78 billion worth of goods.

Austria is the third neighbouring country to be visited by Pirc Musar after she assumed office last December. She first paid a visit to Croatia in February, then Hungary this week, and in the second half of May she is due to go to Italy.