Overview of the week's top stories
since 18 January 2003

The first of two rounds of accession negotiations between NATO and Slovenia took place on Tuesday in Brussels. Given that the most difficult negotiations aimed at enabling Slovenia to join the alliance by May 2004 have already been concluded, these final talks promise few surprises.

On the agenda for Tuesday was a review of Slovenia’s preparedness and ability to join the alliance, with a focus on political, defense and military issues. A second round of talks slated for 31 January in Brussels will focus on security and legal questions, as well as the issue of just how much Slovenia will have to contribute to the alliance’s budget should it join.

On Tuesday, Reuters interviewed Grizold, who predicted not only the continuation of mandatory military service for men, but also the introduction of military service for women if the referendum’s results do not see Slovenia joining NATO. Currently only four countries in the world draft women: Benin, Burma, Cuba and Israel.

For many years, various groups and individuals have pushed for an end to Slovenia’s mandatory military service, and only recently was the decision finally made to do so.

Grizold added that the country’s defense would be more expensive outside of NATO. Currently, the country’s defense budget is about 1.6 percent of its gross domestic product, and is expected to rise to two percent by 2008 if the country joins NATO. Grizold told Reuters that the defense budget would have to rise to 3.5 percent in order to properly defend the country without NATO assistance.

The Reuters interview was covered in depth in the local media. Grizold later said that his comments were taken out of context, and that he neither believes women would be drafted if Slovenia does not join NATO, nor does he think that mandatory military service for men would have to be reinstated.

Gibanje študentov proti militarizaciji suggested that perhaps the government has run out of viable arguments for Slovene entry into NATO and now must resort to threatening its citizens.

On Thursday, the state Election Commission released the official results of last weekend’s two referenda. The referendum on telecommunications attracted 501,780 voters, a turnout rate of 31.1 percent. Nearly 77 percent voted in favor of the proposal that parliament write into law the return of telecommunications system investments to all of those who invested, and to return the entire sum of those investments. Slightly more than 22 percent voted against this proposal.

The government sought to keep the current law, according to which claimants would only get 20 to 40 percent of their investments back. However, the referendum results have made that impossible. Since the referendum was binding, parliament now has one year to enact legislation reflecting the wishes of voters.

Though the report has not been released to the public, commission leader Mirko Zamernik told the press that the report sharply criticizes the cooperation – or lack there of – offered to the commission by both the police and the prosecutor’s office.

"If these organs worked like this during the investigation of the incident itself, it is not surprising to us that the case is still open," he said.

The commission will now pass the report on to parliament, along with several conclusions. Zamernik believes parliament will take it up in a closed session next month.

Miro Petek was attacked in front of his house in the Koroška region and suffered a broken nose and fractures to his skull, jaw and cheek bones. Police have yet to find a single suspect. Parliament established the commission in December 2001 to investigate the way police are dealing with the Petek case, as well as to investigate the possibility of involvement by public officials.

In 2001, the Constitutional Court required twenty town councils to create a seat for a Roma representative, but at the time of the November 2002 local elections, only fourteen had amended their statutes to accommodate the change.

Of the six towns, only Trebnje permitted the election of a Roma representative during the November elections, even though its statutes did not allow for this. At the first meeting of its new town council, the Roma representative was confirmed; Trebnje’s statute must now be changed to bring it into line with the court’s ruling.

If the towns do not bring their statutes into line with the court’s ruling and elect Roma representatives, it seems there is little that can be done. Although new amendments to the Law on Local Self-Administration say that parliament can dissolve the town council at the suggestion of the government if the town’s statute is not in line with the constitution or existing legislation or if the town does not execute a court ruling, amendment is frozen. Its constitutionality is currently being gauged by the Constitutional Court.

Once the deadlines pass, the Office of Local Self-Administration will see which if any towns have not enacted the court’s ruling, and will then report to the government. However, it appears the only thing the government can do is issue a warning to the mayor.

In early February, an international convoy of activists will depart for Iraq to try to prevent war by acting as living shields. Among the participants in the "Living Shield" program will be citizens of Slovenia.

Nichols O'Keffe, US Marine veteran of the 1991 Gulf war and prominent peace activist, is organizing the "Living Shield," which already has more than 100 activists in Iraq.

Slovene activists are currently collecting technical equipment as part of the "Living Shield" program to set up an independent information center in Iraq, as well as medical and sanitation materials to help Iraqi civilians. Materials will be collected at Pekarna in Maribor and at Kiberpipa in Ljubljana until 31 January, when the peace convoy will embark for Iraq.

Local activists are also trying to secure public, business, governmental, media and/or non-governmental sponsorships to help finance their way to Iraq.

On Tuesday, the Slovene Chamber of Advertising and the Cati Center for Marketing, Media, Social Research and Advising held a press conference where they presented new data on print media readership in the second half of 2002. The data is part of the National Readership Research (NRB) project.

The other two dailies fared less impressively: Ekipa had an average of 45,000 readers (2.7%), while Finance had 18,000 readers (1%).

The NRB began on 1 January 2002, and is intended to establish the value of advertising space in the country’s print media. More than 140 titles are included, and the research is conducted on the basis of telephone interviews and door-to-door surveys. The NRB also covers other media, including television and radio stations and the internet. Full results, however, are only available to paid subscribers.

Hriberšek began his career about a year ago, as part of an up-til-then all-female group of go-go dancers that performed with DJ Ice Simoni. Only recently has a second man joined the group.

Hriberšek does not like to call what he does "go-go dancing," since he thinks that sounds cheap; he prefers to use the word "animatorstvo." He has performed in clubs in Nova Gorica, Ljubljana, Maribor, Celje, Šentilj, Fikšince, Rogatec and at two televised beauty contests: Miss Hawaiian Tropic and Miss Universe.

• On Thursday, the government reviewed a report on the status of the denationalization process. The report included a timetable for completing the process, which is expected to be essentially done by mid-2004. As of 30 September 2002, only about twenty percent of all denationalization claims remain outstanding.

• In 2002, 2,158,240 people visited Slovenia’s tourists regions, according to new data released this week by the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia. This is up three percent over 2001, and makes 2002 the biggest year for tourism since independence in 1991. Of the 1,300,858 foreigners who visited last year, most were Italians, followed by Germans, Austrians and Croats. While the number of foreigners visiting Slovenia rose seven percent over 2001, the number of domestic tourists fell by one percent.

• On Wednesday, the 40-member National Council (DS) elected members to seven commissions: for political system, for international relations and European affairs, for the economy, for small enterprise and tourism, for social activities, for local self-administration and regional development and for agriculture, forestry and nutrition. Members were elected to the eighth, the mandate-immunity commission, on 17 December.

• Ljubljana’s Kino Vič is inaugurating its new series of week-long retrospectives with a program called “A Week of Yugoslav Film,” which will be held from 30 January to 5 February. The schedule includes Slobodan Sijan’s classics Ko to tamo peva (Who’s Singing Over There? 1980) and Maratonci trče počasni krug (The Marathon Family, 1982), as well as Srdjan Dragojević’s Lepa sela lepo gore (Pretty Village, Pretty Flame, 1996) and Rane (The Wounds, 1998), Goran Paskaljević’s Bure Baruta (Cabaret Balkan/The Powder Keg, 1998) and Radivoje Andrić’s Munje! (Thunderbirds! 2001).

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