• EU membership dues less than expected
• Parliamentarians visit Serbia
• Slovenes in Sarajevo open "Cankar Days" festival
• Slovenia #9 in the world for suicides
• Internet use rises to 35 percent of population

Slovenia will participate in the elections to the European Parliament of the EU for the first time, on Sunday, 13 June. The 732 seats in the parliament are divided among the 25 EU member states, and seven seats have been allotted to Slovenia.

On 15 May, the Republican Electoral Commission (RVK) announced that 13 parties have applied to participate in the elections. Among the eight parties currently in parliament, only DeSUS did not file to participate in the elections.

In order of the receipt of their applications, the 13 parties are: the Party of the Slovene Nation, the Slovene Youth Party and Green Slovenia (jointly), New Slovenia, Liberal Democracy of Slovenia, the Slovene Democratic Party, the Democratic Party of Slovenia, the Slovene People’s Party, the United List of Social Democrats, the Slovene National Party, Slovenia is Ours, the Party of Ecological Movements, Voice of the Women of Slovenia and the National Party of Labor.

The parties’ applications will be reviewed and evaluated, and the list of parties deemed qualified to participate will be known on 26 May. A total of around 70 candidates are expected for the seven seats on offer.

The RVK also announced that 1,631,752 people in Slovenia will be eligible to vote in the election. Polls will be open from 7:00 until 19:00 on 13 June and initial results should be available after the last polling station closes, around 22:00. Official results will not be available until Tuesday, 22 June.

The exhibit was opened with a reception hosted by Prime Minister Anton Rop and the head of the Bavarian regional government Edmund Stoiber.

NUK has instituted a policy whereby only 30 people are allowed in the room with the documents at any given time, and visits can last only 20 minutes. Only about 10,000 people are expected to be able to view the documents due to this policy, but interest should be great. Visitors are advised to call the library at 01/200-11-55 to find out how long they should expect to wait for entry and for other details. The exhibit is open from 9:00 to 20:00 Monday through Friday and from 9:00 to 14:00 on Sundays. Admission costs SIT 1000 (USD 5.00).

Amendments to the Law on Consumer Safety entered into force on 8 May which, among other things, mandate that stores must use Slovene as their working language, and that advertising messages must be in Slovene. The law is now fully in line with EU directives.

In ethnically-mixed areas, national minority languages (Hungarian, Italian, Romany) may also be used. However, in the areas where Italians and Hungarians are autochthonous, those languages must be used, in addition to Slovene.

Individual words or abbreviations in foreign languages which are commonly understood can be used in advertising, according to the amendments. Warrantees and operating instructions for products must be printed entirely in Slovene if the product is to be sold in Slovenia.

Three vice-presidents were also elected in Novo Mesto: Kranj city council man Vito Rožej, head of the SMS parliamentary delegation Igor Štemberger and former SMS member Alenka Padežnik. The party’s secretary is former SMS vice-president Tadej Slapnik.

Aktivna Slovenia was formed by former members of the Slovene Youth Party (SMS) who objected to the methods utilized by SMS leaders to make decisions. AS organizers called the SMS decision-making process undemocratic. The biggest issue was the fact that the SMS leadership refused to hold a party congress before the European Parliament elections, even though two-thirds of the party’s local committees supported the idea.

Even though he was elected as a member of the SMS, Štemberger is expected to keep his seat in parliament. The party will therefore become the ninth party in parliament, but will have to fight for the right to stay, come this fall’s elections. Parties must win at least four percent of the total votes cast to secure a seat in parliament, according to the law on elections.

AS organizers expect more than half of the SMS local committees to defect to the new party. Like the SMS, AS will have no official affiliation to the liberal or conservative political factions, but will decide its position on each issue based on the issue’s merits. The party, however, has expressed its interest in various policy fields, including social policy, the environment and education.

• According to a 13 May report in Delo, Slovenia will pay 177 million euros in its first year of membership, some 9 million euros less than expected. The drop is the result of a surplus of some 5.47 billion euros in the EU budget. Germany will fare best of all from the cut in dues, as it will have to pay nearly one billion euros less than had been expected.

• A delegation from the Commission for Relations with Slovenes Abroad visited Serbia and Montenegro from 13 to 15 May. The delegation met with members of the Slovene communities in Belgrade, Planika, Subotica, Novi Sad and Zajecar, as well as with members of the parliament of Serbia and Montenegro. According to the 1991 census, some 8300 Slovenes live in Serbia and Montenegro.

• The Slovene community in Sarajevo opened their Cankar Days festival on 10 May with a concert and the start of the 12^th annual Jan Doršner memorial tennis festival in Sarajevo. Cankar Days has been organized since 1993 by Sarajevo’s Cankar Society, which unites Slovenes throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina. Approximately 20,000 ethnic Slovenes live in Bosnia.