Weekly review of events involving Slovenia, 6 to 12 Sept

FRIDAY, 6 September

LJUBLJANA - Tomaž Vesel, a former Court of Audit president, withdrew as Slovenia's candidate for EU commissioner because, he said, he and von der Leyen did not share the same concept of how the European Commission should work. The largest opposition party, the Democrats (SDS) said the withdrawal was a disgrace and proof Slovenia was seen as weak in Brussels.

LJUBLJANA - Interior Minister Boštjan Poklukar and Roma community representatives said that dialogue was the best way to address the open issues between the majority population and the Roma community. Poklukar welcomed the community's idea to set up a coordination body.

LJUBLJANA - The Court of Audit established that the Culture Ministry's decision to transfer Prešeren Prize money to poet Svetlana Makarovič 23 years after she received the award but rejected it was not in line with public finances legislation's principles of efficiency and economy. Minister Asta Vrečko said that nowhere in the report did it say that there was no legal basis for the move.

LJUBLJANA - The management of the national motorway company DARS signed an agreement on a pay raise with all three in-house trade unions to avert a strike. The details of the agreement were not presented and the negotiations on wages will continue.

ČRNOMELJ - A 23-year-old Moroccan citizen drowned in the Kolpa as he tried to cross the river to illegally enter Slovenia from Croatia together with another three foreign nationals. Locals in the area of the village Vukovci in the southeast tried to resuscitate him but to no avail.

SATURDAY, 7 September

RAB, Croatia - National Assembly Speaker Urška Klakočar Zupančič stressed the need for peaceful politics as she addressed a commemoration marking the 81st anniversary of the liberation of the Italian concentration camp Kampor on the Croatian island of Rab, where at least 1,490 Slovenians died.

RIBNICA - Fatmir Bečiri, a vice-president of the Council of the Roma Community, visited three Roma villages in the municipality of Ribnica in the south after a recent series of violent incidents in a bid to encourage them to engage in dialogue with local authorities.

LJUBLJANA - Most participants in a survey commissioned by the daily Delo said that they had doubts that the government will succeed in implementing the announced reforms by the end of its term. Some 69% believe health reform should be done first, but less than one-fifth are optimistic about its implementation.

KOPER - Slovenia's sport climber Janja Garnbret won a World Cup lead event in the Slovenian town of Koper after winning all events she competed in this season, including defending her Tokyo Olympic gold at the Paris Olympic Games last month. She was the only Slovenian in the final.

SUNDAY, 8 September

MADRID, Spain - Slovenian rider Primož Roglič (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe) won La Vuelta a Espana to equalise Spaniard Roberto Heras's record of winning four Vuelta titles. Roglič's win also completed an unprecedented Slovenian grand tour trifecta, Tadej Pogačar having won the Giro and the Tour earlier this year.

NOVO MESTO - A child was injured in a shooting in the Roma settlement of Šmihel in Novo Mesto, SE, but their injures were not life-threatening. The police suspect the child was a collateral victim, not a target. The suspected shooter, aged 51, is in detention, and the investigation is ongoing. Police presence was beefed up in the area as a result of the shooting.

BASOVIZZA, Italy - The annual commemoration of four Slovenian victims of fascism who fought against aggressive Italianisation was held at the memorial site in Basovizza, where they were killed in 1930. Culture Minister Asta Vrečko invited "all Italian politicians to join us here next year and send together a message that they were not terrorists, but fighters for antifascism, freedom, their language and co-existence".

MONDAY, 9 September

LJUBLJANA - In the wake of Tomaž Vesel's stepping aside, the government confirmed Marta Kos, a former diplomat and presidential candidate, as Slovenia's new candidate for EU commissioner. Kos told the STA she was honoured and happy to have been endorsed. The opposition said it had not been consulted and pointed out what it perceives as a lack of political experience in Kos.

NEW YORK, US - UN peacekeeping missions cannot succeed without the unity of the UN Security Council, Ambassador Samuel Žbogar stressed at the council's session. Beforehand Slovenia and ten other members issued a statement on the urgency of incorporating climate security into the peacekeeping framework.

LJUBLJANA - Slovenia and Andorra endorsed an action plan for cooperation as Andorran Prime Minister Xavier Espot Zamora met Prime Minister Robert Golob. Speaking to the press after their meeting, both prime ministers stressed that the two countries had a lot in common. The action plan sets out details and timelines of cooperation.

NOVO MESTO - The mayors of four municipalities in southeast Slovenia where the Roma live issued a renewed call on the government to take immediate action regarding the Roma, after a girl was shot in an apparent dispute between two families in a Roma settlement over the weekend.

LJUBLJANA - Delo's September public opinion poll saw the Democrats (SDS), the largest opposition party, polling at 22.9%, up from 22.6% in August, while PM Robert Golob's Freedom Movement was down 0.2 percentage points to 15.5%. The last time the ruling party was ahead of the SDS was a year ago.

LJUBLJANA - Enzo Smrekar, a vice president at Croatian multinational Atlantic Grupa, was elected the new president of AmCham Slovenia. Smrekar succeeds Blaž Brodnjak, the CEO of the bank NLB.

MARIBOR - The 28th Večernica award for best children's or young adult book of the past year went to Marjana Moškrič for her novel Sneg (Snow) in what is her second Večernica win, the award's sponsor, the newspaper Večer, reported. Sneg is a dystopian novel about teens fighting a totalitarian regime.

LJUBLJANA - Following a 1:1 draw with Austria in their UEFA Nations League Group B3 opener on 6 September, the Slovenia national men's football team beat Kazakhstan 3:0 on the wings of a hat-trick by striker Benjamin Šeško in Ljubljana's Stožice Stadium.

TUESDAY, 10 September

BRUSSELS, Belgium - European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen postponed the presentation of the new European Commission, planned for 11 September, to next week, as Slovenia has not yet concluded the process of appointing its commissioner candidate.

LJUBLJANA - Coalition deputy groups filed a request for an emergency session of the EU Affairs Committee to interview EU commissioner nominee Marta Kos, which they say should be held no later than 13 September. But the committee's chair Franc Breznik of the opposition Democrats (SDS) insists the government must first provide reasons for replacing Tomaž Vesel.

LJUBLJANA - The National Assembly confirmed in a cross-partisan 68:0 vote amendments to the law on post-flood reconstruction designed to accelerate efforts to repair homes and infrastructure in areas hit by the August 2023 floods.

LJUBLJANA - The National Assembly passed in a 51:22 revote amendments to the act governing parliamentary inquiry designed to safeguard persons that are the subject of investigation, a bill that the opposition has decried as an attempt to hamstring inquiries.

LJUBLJANA - The Chamber of Commerce and Industry hosted Innovation Day to confer the national innovation awards. The list of top ten innovators includes steel maker SIJ Acroni, pharma companies Novartis, Krka and Lek, and the German-owned Sartorius BIA Separations.

WEDNESDAY, 11 September

LJUBLJANA - Health Minister Valentina Prevolnik Rupel announced a ban on physicians' dual practice, the phenomenon of public healthcare doctors performing additional work for private providers. Upon presenting the draft changes to stakeholders, the minister said the move was about preserving a universally accessible quality public healthcare.

BRUSSELS, Belgium - Slovenian MEP Romana Tomc (EPP/SDS) said that the Slovenian delegation of the European People's Party (EPP) did not support Marta Kos as the new EU commissioner candidate. Matjaž Nemec (S&D/SD) on the other hand called for unified support for Kos.

LJUBLJANA - The two opposition parties, the Democrats (SDS) and New Slovenia (NSi), filed a criminal complaint against National Assembly President Urška Klakočar Zupančič for suspected abuse of office and misconduct in office. The ruling party, which sees the move as mudslinging, said the coalition had her back. She dismissed the allegations.

VELENJE/LJUBLJANA - Velenje and Šoštanj municipal councils held a meeting to call for transparency in the process of drafting the emergency bill on the TEŠ thermal power plant and for legislation on the energy restructuring of the region to be adopted. The mayors do not support the bill, and the Climate Council, an independent government advisory body, also expressed concern about fiscal risks.

LJUBLJANA - NLB, a leading Slovenian bank, completed the acquisition of SLS Holdco, the parent company of Summit Leasing Slovenija, and its subsidiaries, including the Croatian company Mobil Leasing. NLB is thus becoming a leading provider of leasing services in Slovenia and re-entering Croatia after almost 30 years.

LJUBLJANA - Family Therapy, a black comedy family drama by acclaimed auteur Sonja Prosenc, has been picked to be Slovenia's official entry for consideration in the best international feature category at the 2025 Oscars. The feature had its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York in June.

THURSDAY, 12 September

BRDO PRI KRANJU - Healthcare, housing, climate policy, knowledge, public finances and the rule of law remain the top priorities of the coalition until the end of its term, Prime Minister Robert Golob said as coalition deputies and ministers met to review which commitments from the coalition agreement it has yet to implement.

LJUBLJANA - A stand-off between the government and the opposition over the appointment of Slovenia's EU commissioner candidate continued. The EU Affairs Committee got only one of two letters its chair says it wants before it states its opinion on Slovenia's candidate, Tomaž Vesel's resignation, but not the second one, a letter allegedly sent by Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to PM Robert Golob. Golob indicated such a letter will not be forthcoming.

LJUBLJANA - IMAD, the government's macroeconomic forecaster, sharply downgraded the GDP growth forecast for this year. It expects the economy to grow at a pace of only 1.5%, down from its spring forecast of 2.4%. For next year it reduced the forecast by just 0.1 points, to 2.4%.

LJUBLJANA - Slovenia will take in eight to ten wounded children from Gaza for health and psychosocial rehabilitation as part of a project between the Foreign Ministry and the Catholic charity Caritas Slovenia. The government will provide EUR 700,000 for the project.

LJUBLJANA - It emerged that the police have initiated pre-trial proceedings against the parliamentary Commission on Oversight of Intelligence and Security Services (KNOVS) over last year's inquiry at the General Police Administration. The chair of the opposition-controlled commission said the KNOVS had acted lawfully and that the police were being abused for political purposes.

LJUBLJANA - The largest opposition party, the Democrats (SDS), called on Finance Minister Klemen Boštjančič to resign after the Court of Audit found several irregularities in last year's budget closing account. Boštjančič dismissed the SDS's call saying that it is an attempt to divert attention from the economic indicators in Slovenia being quite favourable.