Weekly review of events involving Slovenia, 5-11 May

FRIDAY, 5 May
        LJUBLJANA - The Serbian Embassy in Ljubljana opened a book of condolence to commemorate the victims of a deadly school shooting in Belgrade that killed nine people while leaving eight wounded on 4 May. Slovenian basketball superstar Luka Dončić announced on 4 May that he will cover the costs of the funerals and pay for counselling for the victims' families and the affected students and staff.
        LJUBLJANA - Senior officials condemned yet another fatal shooting in Serbia as a 21-year-old man shot at least eight people dead in the Mladenovac area the day before.
        LJUBLJANA - Slovenia exported EUR 14.4 billion worth of goods in the first quarter of the year, up 27% over the same period a year ago, as imports rose at a slower pace, by 11.2% to EUR 14.5 billion, fresh Statistics Office figures showed. The trade gap amounted to EUR 84.3 million with export-import ratio at 99.4%.
        LJUBLJANA - Slovenia's registered jobless in April dropped by 3.4% at the monthly level to reach 48,598, the lowest figure since 1990. In yearly comparison, the figure is down by 16.3%, said a report by the Employment Service.
        VRHNIKA/LJUBLJANA - Slovenia's former President Milan Kučan urged erecting a memorial to Slovenian independence in Republic Square in Ljubljana as he addressed a WWII commemoration. All parliamentary parties bar the Left endorsed the idea and the government took the first steps to erect the monument on 11 May.
        STOCKHOLM, Sweden - Health Minister Danijel Bešič Loredan said the issue of medicines shortages should be addressed at the EU level, as he attended an informal meeting of EU health ministers. He pointed to differences among EU countries in the availability of certain medicines, saying that, for example, a medicine for children had not been available on the Slovenian market while it could be obtained in neighbouring countries.
        LJUBLJANA - The Helsinki Monitor of Slovenia, a Ljubljana-based human rights NGO, filed a complaint with the Constitutional Court against the April decision of the Ministry of Natural Resources to allow the culling of 230 brown bears to reduce their population in the country that is estimated at 1,100.
        LJUBLJANA - Dozens of environmental groups criticised the updated National Energy and Climate Plan on 5 and 10 May, saying it was not ambitious enough. Meanwhile, the Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GZS) said on 8 May Slovenia should use all available energy sources, including nuclear.
        TRBOVLJE/LJUBLJANA - The police secured two primary schools in Trbovlje in central Slovenia as it received a threatening e-mail the day before, which is believed to be motivated by the school shooting in Serbia.
        LJUBLJANA - The number of licensed gun owners and registered weapons in Slovenia has been increasing in recent years with Interior Ministry data showing that most weapons are licensed for hunting. Concrete estimates about the amount of illegal weapons are not available, but police do not believe the amounts are very large.

SATURDAY, 6 May
        LONDON, UK - President Nataša Pirc Musar and her husband Aleš Musar attended the coronation of King Charles III and Queen Camilla at Westminster Abbey. The president wished the new king much wisdom and good health, expressing her belief that the excellent relationship between Slovenia and the UK will continue under the new king.
        MOJSTRANA - The UK Embassy in Slovenia organised an event in Mojstrana in the north-west of the country to remember King Charles's visit to Slovenia 25 years ago.
        LJUBLJANA - Credit rating agency Fitch affirmed Slovenia's long-term foreign-currency issuer default rating at 'A' with a stable outlook.
        LJUBLJANA - Tomaž Štokelj, the CEO of energy group HSE, said that the Šoštanj thermal power station (TEŠ), Slovenia's only coal-fired plant, would see its future operations limited to periods when electricity prices on the market were higher and there were shortages of electricity in Slovenia's system.
        LJUBLJANA - Thousands of hikers and runners took part in the 65th Walk along the Wire in Ljubljana in a culmination of a three-day event in memory of the barbed wire that kept the city under the lockout during WWII.
        LJUBLJANA - The High School Students' Organisation responded to the mass shootings in Serbia by urging the authorities to provide a detailed list of activities to prevent such tragedies in Slovenia.
        LJUBLJANA - One out of three of those questioned in a poll run by the newspaper Delo believe there is less political interference in the work of the police under the Robert Golob government than under his predecessor Janez Janša, while one out of five think the reverse.

SUNDAY, 7 May
        SKOPJE, North Macedonia - Interior Minister Boštjan Poklukar started a two-day official visit to North Macedonia, meeting his counterpart Oliver Spasovski and visiting Slovenian police officers working at the country's southern border as part of Frontex.
        ZAGREB, Croatia - The Slovenian minority in Croatia elected its representatives in local communities amidst very low turnout. There will be Slovenian minority councils in nine local governments and Slovenian representatives in eight, Croatian Electoral Commission data showed.
        KIDRIČEVO - Boxmark Leather, the Kidričevo-based car upholstery maker, saw its sales revenue rise in 2022 by some EUR 8 million to just under EUR 60.5 million, despite global supply problems in the car industry. For the second year in a row, the company operated with profit, which reached EUR 2.2 million.
        VRHNIKA - Author Mojca Kumerdej won the Cankar Prize for best original literature published over the past year for her collection of eight short stories about different types of violence in different social environments titled Gluha Soba (Deaf Room).
        LJUBLJANA - Slovenia ranked 14th out of 30 European countries, scoring 18 points out of 100 in an analysis of price accessibility of public transport by Greenpeace Central and Eastern Europe.

MONDAY, 8 May
        LJUBLJANA - Slovenia's banking system remains stable, with the general level of systemic risks to financial stability in Slovenia and the outlook improving, the central bank said in its latest Financial Stability Report.
        LJUBLJANA - Prime Minister Robert Golob underlined that history must not be abused for hate speech, as he laid a wreath at a monument commemorating 77 Partisans who were killed near the village of Orle just before the end of WWII in the final push to liberate Nazi-occupied Ljubljana.
        LJUBLJANA - Two airlines, Luxair and To Montenegro, have applied for subsidies offered by the Slovenian government to improve the country's air connectivity in response to the first call, the Infrastructure Ministry said.
        ČRNOMELJ - President Nataša Pirc Musar and UK Ambassador to Slovenia Tiffany Sadler stressed the importance of the "priceless" friendship between the two nations as they addressed a ceremony marking UK-Slovenia Friendship Day in Gornji Suhor, a village in the south-east where a British bomber crashed in 1945.
        LJUBLJANA - The latest monthly opinion poll by the newspaper Delo indicated the decline of the Freedom Movement had stopped, the ruling party having gained 0.8 percentage points on the month before to 23.8%. The SDS, the largest opposition party, lost 2.4 percentage points to 20.9%.
        LJUBLJANA - Four in five craftspersons raised the prices of their services in the past year, an online survey by the price-comparison site primerjam.si has found. Those who increased prices the most are construction companies, tilers and renovation companies.

TUESDAY, 9 May
        LJUBLJANA - The Slovenian automotive cluster will get EUR 200 million in state subsidies over the next five years for digital and green transformation, Prime Minister Robert Golob announced.
        NEW YORK, US - Foreign Minister Tanja Fajon started a three-day visit to the UN headquarters to campaign for Slovenia's candidacy for non-permanent membership of the UN Security Council.
        LJUBLJANA - PM Robert Golob and FM Tanja Fajon marked Europe Day by stressing in their separate messages the importance of the EU's unity.
        LJUBLJANA - After the ruling coalition tabled legislation in mid-April introducing an obligatory health contribution in a fixed monthly amount of 35 euros, the junior coalition Left party proposed a progressive mandatory contribution. On 10 May, PM Golob said debate on progressiveness was irrelevant at this time.
        LJUBLJANA - The first of four Air Tractor firefighting aircraft Slovenia had ordered after last year's devastating wildfire is already in the country, the Defence Ministry tweeted.
        LJUBLJANA - Insurance group Triglav expressed concern that its planned pre-tax profit of EUR 95 to 100 million for this year could be by 25 to 40% lower due to a recent government decision to cap the monthly top-up health insurance premium at EUR 35.67. It urged the government to promptly abolish the existing system of supplementary health insurance.
        PORTOROŽ - The Slovenian Incoming Workshop, the flagship event of the Slovenian tourism industry, got underway, with the main events taking place on 10 May, featuring 3,000 meetings between representatives of Slovenian tourism companies and foreign tour operators.
        VIENNA, Austria - Olga Voglauer, an ethnic Slovenian from the Austrian state of Carinthia and an MP in the Austrian parliament, was appointed the new secretary general of the Green Party.
        LJUBLJANA - The government reintroduced the environmental duty for fossil fuels, but the regulated prices of diesel and regular petrol at petrol stations outside the motorway network will be still lower in the coming two weeks, the Environment, Climate and Energy Ministry said.

WEDNESDAY, 10 May
        LJUBLJANA - The parliamentary Foreign Policy Committee backed a declaration that says the Holodomor, a famine with which the Soviet authorities starved to death millions of Ukrainians in 1933-34, was genocide. The document will be put to a vote at a plenary session.
        LJUBLJANA - The Chamber of Trade Crafts and Small Business addressed 125 demands to the government as it held its annual forum. Addressing the event, PM Robert Golob assured small businesses that the government would be taking all measures based on dialogue.
        LJUBLJANA - The Commission for Justice and Peace of the Slovenian Bishops' Conference expressed its opposition to a bill on assisted suicide presented by Silver Thread, an association campaigning for dignified old age.
        LJUBLJANA - Mufti Nevzet Porić, the religious leader of the Muslim community in Slovenia, called for equal treatment of imams compared to other religious workers as he visited Culture Minister Asta Vrečko.
        LJUBLJANA - The State Attorney's Office will have EUR 12 million less available this year than initially planned, while the Supreme Court will get EUR 5 million more under the revised 2023 budget proposed by the government.
        LJUBLJANA - The Slovenian economy as a whole improved its performance in 2022, but the high inflation rate pushed many indicators down in real terms. Net profit was down by a percentage point in real terms compared to the previous year, and net value added per employee fell even more, showed data from the AJPES agency for public records.
        LJUBLJANA - Slovenian industrial output was up 2.3% in March compared to February but down 5.5% in yearly comparison, the latest Statistics Office data showed. Industrial output in the first quarter of 2023 was 4.6% lower year-on-year.
        DOHA, Qatar - Judoka Andreja Leški won silver for Slovenia at the World Championships in Doha, having to concede to multiple world and Olympic champion Clarisse Agbegnenou of France in the final yet again.

THURSDAY, 11 May
        LJUBLJANA - The NLB banking group reported EUR 120.1 million in net profit for the first quarter of 2023, a 46% decrease year-on-year. On 10 May, the management of NLB proposed a total dividend payout of EUR 110 million for 2022 in two instalments of EUR 2.75 per share.
        LJUBLJANA - Telekom Slovenije, the telecoms incumbent, reported an 8% increase in sales revenue in the first quarter to EUR 163.2 million. Net profit declined by 32% to EUR 8.2 million. EBITDA stood at EUR 54.2 million, down 4% but above plans, the company said.
        LJUBLJANA - Environment Minister Uroš Brežan told the newspaper Večer the Administrative Court had decided that the public interest of producing renewable energy does not prevail over the public interest of nature conservation in the planned Mokrice hydro power station on the river Sava. The government will now have to decide on the next steps.
        LJUBLJANA - The parliamentary Defence Committee discussed the proposed 2023 supplementary budget for defence, which raises spending by EUR 2.7 million. 20% of the defence budget is to go for key investments in equipment, which does not include investments in infrastructure and facilities.
        STRASBOURG, France - Representatives of Carinthian Slovenians met with members of the European Parliament's Intergroup for Traditional Minorities, National Communities and Languages, telling the MEPs that minority rights in Austria are not fully implemented.
        LJUBLJANA - A total of 23,938 job vacancies were announced in Slovenia in the first quarter of the year, which is 2% more than in the last quarter of 2022. The largest number of workers were sought in manufacturing, almost 5,000, the Statistics Office reported.
        LJUBLJANA - A four-day conference on the challenges of cyber defence came to a close, stressing that a pro-active exchange of information is key to preventing cyberthreats directed against the EU and NATO. It was attended by more than 150 representatives of NATO, the EU and partner countries.
        LJUBLJANA - Peter Štih, a 62-year-old medieval history professor, was elected for a second three-year term as the president of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts (SAZU).
        LJUBLJANA - The National Electoral Commission (DVK) called a new election for 31 May to appoint the representative for culture and sports in the upper chamber of parliament, the National Council, after the top court voided the appointment of Tomaž Horvat.
        NEW YORK, US - Slovenian Luka Dončić of the Dallas Mavericks was named the All-NBA first team. This is the fourth straight first-team honour for the 24-year-old point guard.
        LJUBLJANA - President Nataša Pirc Musar and Prime Minister Robert Golob hosted Mohammed Ben Sulayem, head of the International Automobile Federation (FIA), discussing the possibility of constructing a racecourse in Slovenia and fight against hate speech.