News roundup - Friday, 28 February, until 3pm
Ljubljana, 28 February - Below is a roundup of major events on Friday, 28 February, until 3pm local time:
Annual inflation rate slows down to 1.6%
LJUBLJANA - The annual inflation rate in Slovenia in February was down by 0.4 percentage points from January to 1.6%, largely driven by higher prices of food and non-alcoholic beverages. On a monthly basis, consumer prices were up by 0.3%, mostly owing to more expensive holiday packages, the Statistics Office said. The prices of services went up by 3.2% on average, and the prices of goods by 0.7%.
Disputed EUR 83m call for coal region restructuring annulled
LJUBLJANA - The public investment promotion agency SPIRIT annulled the controversial EUR 83 million open call for co-financing the restructuring of the two Slovenian coal regions after Economy Minister Matjaž Han urged it to do so. A new call under the new leadership of SPIRIT is expected to be prepared within three months. Earlier, Public Finance Oversight Commission chair Jernej Vrtovec of the opposition New Slovenia (NSi) said that the parliamentary body will hold a session next Monday to discuss the call.
Illegal entries down significantly in January y/y
LJUBLJANA - The police handled 1,170 irregular border crossings in January, which is a third of the figure recorded in the first month of last year. The majority of cases involved citizens of Afghanistan, Morocco, and Bangladesh. By contrast, last year Syrian nationals predominated, accounting for nearly one-quarter of all cases. The number of migrant smuggling cases fell from 77 to 13. Throughout the entirety of last year, the police handled 482 cases of migrant smuggling, broadly level with 2023.
Share of households experiencing energy poverty up slightly in 2024
LJUBLJANA - Around 64,000 or 7.3% of households in Slovenia lived in energy poverty in 2024, 0.1 percentage points more than the previous year. This affected about 110,000 people, 1,000 more than in 2023. Since 2014, the number of energy-poor households has dropped by one third or by 25,000 households. One-person households had the highest rate (14.3%), with a higher incidence among people aged 65 or over (15.1%) compared to younger generations (13.5%).