Overview of the week's top stories
since 25 February 2002

The founding session of the Convention on the Future of the European Union began on Thursday at the European Parliament in Brussels. The convention is tasked with laying the groundwork for renewing EU institutions in preparation for expansion.

On Tuesday, Foreign Minister Dimitri Rupel expressed dissatisfaction with the fact that EU candidate countries will not have a representative in the Convention’s presidency. At the same time, however, he stated that "powerful arguments and proposals in the debates could offset the disadvantage."

Earlier in the week, parliament promulgated its official strategy for negotiations at the convention. The strategy argues for the protection of national identities, the defense of smaller members against the influence of larger ones and increasing the political responsibility of European institutions.

Dnevnik’s February public opinion poll once again gauged support for EU membership, and found that opposition is rising.

In January, 63.2 percent of those polled supported EU entry. Just one month later, the number fell to 50.6 percent. The daily cites adverse reaction to the EC’s strategy for financing expansion as the major reason. The number of opponents to EU membership grew by ten percent during the period, and the number of undecided also rose.

More than 70 percent thought the Slovene government must try to get a more favorable deal from Brussels. As many as 14 percent thought the government should not only shun the financial strategy, but break of accession negotiations altogether. Just five percent thought the financial strategy was reasonable.

Aleš Štakul, General Director of Radio-Television Slovenia (RTVS) fanned the flames of the public debate which has followed the transvestite group Sestre’s surprise victory at the Eurosong 2002 contest last week. At a meeting of the RTVS council on Thursday, Štakul proposed that the contest’s results be erased and the whole contest be redone.

The council decided that such a move was not within its authority, though suggested that Štakul not press the issue elsewhere. Štakul seems to have taken the advice, and so for now, Sestre remain the Slovene representatives to the international Eurosong contest in Tallinn this May.

Prior to Thursday’s meeting, gay-rights and other NGOs staged press conferences and public demonstrations, rallying against Štakul’s proposal. They believed that redoing the contest at this point would turn the contest into a de facto referendum on the public’s acceptance of homosexuality.

Led by ŠKUC Magnus, ŠKUC LL, Legebitra, Out in Slovenia and the Škuc Association, the primarily gay-rights NGOs were joined later in the week by various other groups, including the Student Organization of Ljubljana University, the Mirovni Inštitut and even the United List of Social Democrats (ZLSD) Youth Forum.

The Syndicate of Musicians also protested this week, though against the Eurosong contest organizers. One protester, Sašo Fajon, told Dnevnik that contrary to popular opinion, the protest is not an expression of "homophobia or xenophobia, or even of sour grapes. It is simply against making the same mistakes in future such contests in Slovenia."

The session was called in the face of information published in Wednesday’s Mag, which considerably deepened the recent scandals surrounding the humanitarian organization. The article concerned shady business deals surrounding a tract of land owned by the Red Cross in Valdoltra.

The Red Cross has been in the center of a major scandal for weeks. Even aside from the Valdoltra affair, the organization has been called to task for several other questionable business moves, including lending money to private businesses

The Red Cross is regulated by the 1995 Law on Associations. Under this law, associations may earn profits, but may not be founded solely for that purpose. The organization is also regulated by the 1993 Law on the Red Cross.

Although parliament received more than 50 petitions for the establishment of new towns in recent months, this week it decided to approve only one – Šmartno pri Litiji. A referendum on 7 April will decide whether the town will achieve independence from the town of Litija.

On Wednesday, representatives of the Initiative Committee for the Establishment of New Towns announced their intention to appeal parliament’s decision to the Constitutional Court. The group maintains that according to the Constitution, the establishment of new towns should be done via popular referendum, not at the caprice of parliament.

Head of the Association of Slovene Towns Anton Kokalj also spoke out against the decision, alleging that a "new totalitarianism" is emerging throughout the country. Kokalj has emerged in recent years as a leading critic of what he perceives as the government’s centralizing tendencies.

Parliament made its decision against supporting the new towns based on controversial legislation which states that a town must have at least 5,000 inhabitants in addition to other criteria.

A Council of Europe report last year strongly criticized the government for not following this rule in the past, leading to the creation of towns so small they cannot support themselves. According to law, towns are to be self-financed from local taxes, duties, and revenues received from municipal property. But according to the Council of Europe, only 25 percent of municipalities are actually self-financed. The rest receive state subsidies, which limit their constitutionally-guaranteed autonomy and drain the national budget.

For more than three decades, Slovenia’s Muslim community has tried to gain permission to build a religious center in Ljubljana. Though the issue was on the agenda of the city council this week, councilmen’s attitude toward the plan remains firmly against it.

Councilman Dr. Janez Vrbošek proposed two sites for the center this week, both of which were shot down. The first was the current summer sports center, the second the auto-compound lot between the Railroad Health Center and the gas station on Tivolska Cesta.

At the time of the 1991 census, there were 30,000 Muslims in Slovenia, unofficial statistics point to anywhere between seventy and one hundred thousand today.

At a conference called Actors at the Local Level, head of Italy’s Gorica province Giorgi Brandolin called for the Italian city Goriza and the Slovene city Nova Gorica to become a "European nucleus of cooperative innovation which can develop into a model for the wider border region."

Brandolin stressed that the two cities have much to gain when the border between them disappears upon Slovene entry into the European Union.

The key-note speaker was member of the Italian parliament Riccardo Illy, the former mayor of Trieste (Trst) who is a long-time supporter of the local Slovene minority. Illy spoke about the human resource situation in the border region, where the workforce has a low proportion of educated, qualified workers.

Illy also said that Italian companies must reorient their policies to take into account EU expansion, and must become more innovative to remain competitive.

Chairman of the Udine regional Committee for Vocational Education Giorgio Venier Romano called for the quick signing and ratification of the Italian-Slovene Convention of Movement of Workers Across Borders, which in his words will turn the Goriza-Nova Gorica area into an "economic heart of Europe."

The conference was organized by the Goriza regional administration and the provincial institute Gramsci at the end of last week.