Overview of the week's top stories
since 22 April 2002

The Slovene government’s public opinion poll Politibarometer was released this week, and shows that in the event of a referendum, 54 percent of Slovenes would vote for EU membership, while 32 would vote against it. However, statistics from the EU’s public opinion poll Eurobarometer show that significantly few EU citizens support Slovenia’s entry into the Union.

Only about 37 percent of those polled in the Eurobarometer supported Slovene membership, with some 40 percent opposed. Of the 13 candidate countries, only Romania and Turkey have less support.

Statistics for Austria alone are more encouraging. About 51 percent said they support Slovene membership in the EU. That percentage was enough to put Slovenia in that country’s top three. However, opposition to Slovene membership has grown since last year by some 12 percent.

In Italy, only 43 percent supported Slovene membership, putting it at ninth place for the country. Support for Slovenia was strongest in Sweden, 61 percent.

For the first time, the Eurobarometer showed a majority of EU citizens support the expansion process. More than fifty percent supported the processes, while only 30 percent did not.

Once again, Malta, Hungary and Poland were rated the most desirable of the candidate countries, but EU citizens would still prefer to see Switzerland, Norway or Iceland become members than any of the current candidate states.

Drnovšek told Radio Celje that he cannot run due to "the way things stand." It is unclear whether this is a reference to his uncertain health, to the recent criticism he has faced in the media, or to something entirely different.

According to an analysis published this week in Dnevnik, many factors are working against Drnovšek. At the top of the list is the public opinion that it would be irresponsible for him to leave his current post as prime minister at a time when the country is nearing the fulfillment of its goals of EU and NATO membership.

Dnevnik also pointed out that if he left his post to run for president, he would give up his moment in the spotlight shoud the country join the EU or NATO in the near future.

The newspaper says that members of Drnovšek’s party, Liberal Democracy (LDS), would not be happy with his candidature on the grounds that he is leaving no clear successor to his current posts as prime minister and leader of the LDS.

Further, the post of president exists primarily for the sake of protocol, and does not carry much authority. Drnovšek wields significantly more power as prime minister.

Two weekends ago, the Ministry of Finance reported the cost of the government’s new airplane, USD 35 million, and RTVS journalists added in taxes and interest and arrived at the shocking figure of USD 57 million.

Igor Mekina, in his article "Slovenia and the Near East" in this week’s Mladina, says the government is making NATO membership more of a priority than EU membership, despite claims to the contrary and the fact that residents seem to support joining the EU far more than NATO.

In the article, Mekina uses Slovenia’s foreign policy moves during the current Middle East crisis as an example of how the country’s foreign policy has become "collateral damage" in the course of the government’s attempts to secure membership in NATO by following Washington’s lead and ignoring Brussels.

"The reaction of Slovene diplomats to the worsening of Israeli-Palestinian conflict is most evident in the organs of the United Nations," he writes. Last year, the UN General Assembly passed six resolutions which condemned Israeli actions in the occupied territories. While most countries supported all six, Mekina points out that Slovenia supported half and abstained from voting on the rest.

Currently, there are tensions in the UN between the US, which supports Israel, and the EU, which supports the Palestinians. The General Assembly has passed 19 resolutions lately which are critical of Israeli actions, including one which condemns Israeli actions in East Jerusalem and other occupied territories. Slovenia abstained from voting on this resolution in deference to Washington, according to Mekina.

"When it has to choose between the US and the EU, Slovene diplomacy chooses the US. And with it NATO. This is somewhat in contradiction to the assurances of the Prime Minister, who likes to stress that for him, EU entry is a ‘higher’ priority than entry into NATO," Mekina concludes.

Last weekend, a 22 year old girl from Šoštanj was admitted to a hospital in Celje after taking the drug ecstasy at a rave in Velenje on Sunday. The girl was in critical condition.

"This was her first rave and she was very excited," her mother told Dnevnik. "I told her to be careful of drugs, and she told me, ‘Ah, no way mom, I’m too old not to know to be careful. Don’t worry, I know what I’m doing.’"

Police raided the rave and found a 21 year-old from near Velenje with four kilograms of hemp and 500 ecstasy tablets hidden in his car.

This is at least the third such incident in just under a year. Last September, a young man from Kamnik almost died in Velenje after taking ecstasy at a rave. The Velenje city council considered outlawing raves in the town, but could not reach a consensus and nothing was done. After a 17 year-old died after taking ecstasy at a rave in Celje last summer, however, raves were outlawed in the town.

• Slovenia’s first television program in Roma was broadcast on Tuesday at 21:30. Called Romano Nevijpe, or Roma News, the program was prepared by the Murska Sobota station As. The thirty-minute program will be shown in Murska Sobota, Novo Mesto, Velenje and Maribor five times a year, according to an agreement between the government’s Office of Nationalities and the Union of Roma of Slovenia. The next broadcast will be on 25 June.

• Amnesty International Slovenia staged a demonstration at the US embassy in Ljubljana this week protesting human rights abuses in Israel and Palestine. About 50 people participated. They also gave ambassador Johnny Young a protest letter in which they called on America to improve human rights in the region and condemned American military assistance to Israel.