Overview of the week's top stories
since 9 September 2002

The agreement allows both Slovene and Croatian fishermen to use the bay, and is in line with the bilateral border cooperation and traffic agreement (SOPS). It still must be elaborated by a joint SOPS implementation commission and be confirmed by both governments.

According to the agreement, joint police forces will patrol the bay and fishing will be supervised by a joint commission.

Other open issues between Slovenia and Croatia include the disputed ownership of the Krško nuclear power plant and the debts of Ljubljanska Banka to its Croatian customers. The border issue is considered the most pressing.

On Thursday, the government adopted the opinion that an initiative of the city council of Grosuplje is baseless. The Grosuplje city council is trying to get a Constitutional Court ruling on the constitutionality of amendments to the Law on Local Self-Administration requiring seats for representatives of the Roma community on twenty city councils, including that of Grosuplje.

The government maintains that the amendments fulfill an earlier Constitutional Court ruling which mandated special electoral rights for Roma in the communities where they live. An elected Roma representative to city councils is a major step towards improving the state of the Roma community, according to the government.

On Tuesday, the Regional Development Agency of Ljubljana hosted a press conference to present the regional development program. The agency approved the strategic part of the program in July and is preparing to execute it this fall. Among the fields it covers are the economy, transit, culture and the environment.

The leader of the team charged with preparing the program, Jernej Stritih, described the segment relating to transit. The rise in personal car ownership in the last decade is quickly rendering the current transportation system unworkable. One major feature of the regional development program is the reintroduction of a tram system throughout the city and its hinterlands.

The tram system would run along the streets in the capital and would be connected to the national railroad system, thus linking Ljubljana with other urban centers. The final decision to enact the tram system, however, has not yet been made since the program is not expected to be completed until the end of 2003.

Maribor’s Arts Gallery opened an exhibit of 20^th century Slovene architecture on Tuesday, curated by Dr. Stane Bernik, an arts expert, critic and publicist. The exhibit includes 114 projects executed by about 50 architects, including individual houses, housing complexes, churches, commercial buildings, interiors and bridges.

At the end of last year, the exhibit was staged at Ljubljana’s City Gallery. The exhibit can now be seen at the Umetnostna Galerija Maribor at Strossmayerjeva 6, until 6 October 2002.

• On Thursday, Delo reported that the national electoral commission will establish 34 polling stations at Slovene diplomatic-consular missions around the world. Absentee ballots can also be cast by post, but only for the presidential election; only those with permanent residence in a given municipality (whether a citizen or not) are eligible to vote in the local elections, which will be held on the same day.