Overview of the week's top stories since 29 August 2003

Relations with Croatia hit new low

On Monday, Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel publicly stated that Slovenia may drop its support for Croatia’s bid to join the European Union over the recent diplomatic furor concerning Croatia’s plan to establish an Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) in the Adriatic. Slovenia will join the EU in May 2004; Croatia hopes to join by 2007. Rupel made the statement in response to provocative comments made last week by Croatia’s foreign minister, Tone Picula.

At a press conference on Wednesday, however, Prime Minister Anton Rop would only say that "It has been and remains in Slovenia’s interest for Croatia to join the EU as soon as possible." However, he pointed out that the EU operates on discussions and agreements and not on unilateral actions.

Picula’s comments also caused Rupel to recall Peter Bekeš, Slovenia’s ambassador to Croatia, to Ljubljana this week in protest. Rop told the press on Wednesday that he hopes Bekeš can return to Zagreb as soon as possible, but that it depends on Croatia’s willingness to resolve the issue of the EEZ.

Brussels chimed in on the debacle this week as well. European Commissar for Agriculture, Franz Fischler, responded to a letter sent by Foreign Minister Rupel and Agriculture Minister France But in mid-August. Fischler responded that according to international maritime law, Croatia is within its rights to declare an EEZ, but that agreement with neighboring states must be reached.

Rupel has also sent letters to European Commissars Gunter Verheugen and Chris Patten, in charge of expansion and foreign affairs, to Secretary General of the EU Ministerial Council Javier Solana and to Foreign Minister and EU President Franco Frattini. Only Patten’s press secretary responded by the end of the week, saying that the European Commission cannot decide on exclusive economic zones or interstate borders, but that the organization is in touch with both sides.

Talks are expected to be held on 16 September in Ljubljana. Aside from governmental negotiating teams, legal and environmental experts as well as representatives of Slovene and Croatian fishermen are also expected to take part.

Croatia announced the EEZ plan on 1 August. The plan would split the Adriatic down the middle between Croatia and Italy, cutting Slovenia off from international waters. Should the EEZ plan go forward, Slovenia would find itself nearly 500 kilometers from international waters. Slovene vessels would still have navigation rights, and aircraft would still have overflight rights, but fishermen could face quotas, licensing fees and other restrictions.

Croatian newsweekly Nacional alleged last week that Slovenia nearly caused a power outage which could have affected several countries in the region. On 27 August at 9:15, according to Nacional, a problem at a transformer station caused the nuclear power plant at Krško (NEK) to halt electricity production. A domino effect could have caused a blackout on the European grid along the lines of last month's mass outage in the United States.

The Nacional article states that the problem in a local transformer station went unreported, and power was halted to the Krško-Tumbri, Tumbri-Herviz and Tumbri-Meline relay stations, which supply electricity to western Croatia. The problem could have spilt over into Hungary and Italy as well.

The loss of power from NEK forced other electricity providers to increase production to ensure continued power supply. This put a strain on the grid which could have caused other electricity producers to shut down, which then would have produced a large-scale blackout. According to Nacional, the loss of electricity in the grid from NEK was fulfilled by German reserves, which luckily were enough to accommodate the problem.

Nacional also wrote, however, that Croatia Electro-Economy (HEP) will not confirm any of these charges.

On 4 September, parts of Maribor’s Lent district actually did experience a blackout, due to a problem in a local transformer station. The outage only lasted 18 minutes, however, and seems to have been unrelated to any larger problems.

On 1 September, the Office of the Ombudsman for Public Information, led by Igor Šoltes, officially came into being. Šoltes, until recently the director of the governmental Office of Public Tenders, has been named to the post for the next five years by the National Assembly.

The Ombudsman’s office is an independent state body intended to help guarantee the public’s right to access to governmental information of a public nature. The body is mandated by the Law on Access to Information

Aside from the Ombudsman, the office is composed of two advisors, with technical support coming from the Ministry of Information Society. The office should have a website prepared sometime this month to help raise awareness of its functions.

Although access to non-sensitive information is guaranteed by Article 39 of the Constitution, the annual reports of the office of the Ombudsman for Human Rights has pointed out for several years that additional legislation is required to carry out the guarantee. The Law on Access to Information, which fills the gap, was only passed last year. In principle, it is similar to the United States’ Freedom of Information Act.

The print run will be upped from 26 to 30 thousand issues as part of the expansion, and will be distributed via post, rather than through Primorske Novice’s network. According to a Goriška spokesman, the magazine is also looking into the possibility of going bilingual – Slovene and Italian. This would be the first bilingual monthly magazine in the country.

The fact that the magazine is supported entirely by advertising revenue and has run a profit since the first issue already attests to its appeal and popularity. Now, with widened distribution and the possibility of introducing Italian-language material, things can only get better.

• Representatives of the Group of States Against Corruption (GRECO) met with officials in Ljubljana from 2 to 5 September to review the state of corruption in the country. This second round of investigation follows an earlier review from 2000. GRECO representatives met with government officials, as well as with representatives of non-governmental organizations and independent experts. The group’s final report should be released this December. GRECO is a subsidiary body of the Council of Europe, and is mandated to regularly appraise the state of corruption in all Council of Europe member states.