Overview of the week's top stories
since 24 March 2002

A week into a national strike of doctors and dentists, negotiations between the national health union Fides and the government continued to flounder. The strike is expected to continue until at least next Tuesday. If the union’s demands are not met by then, Fides spokesmen say the conditions of the strike will intensify.

The government spent the week investigating how much meeting the union’s demands for a new definition of doctors’ basic salary and a different way of formulating pay for being on call would cost the state. Exact figures were to be provided by Friday.

According to PopTV, the union’s other demands were acceptable to the government negotiators. If an agreement can be reached on these final two points, the strike would be ended.

The union intensified its stance on Wednesday, when the strike committee met and unanimously voted to call for the resignation of Minister of Health Dušan Keber. They believe that he could have done more to ensure the situation had not reached this critical point. Meeting that demand, however, is not a condition for ending the strike.

Keber told the media that he feels no responsibility for what is going on and that he supports the strike leaders’ demands for better working conditions. He also said that he would only step down if he lost the confidence of parliament or if he or one of his associates has made some error which would demand such a move.

The daily Dnevnik reported that a poll it conducted with Ninamedia shows that while 48.2 percent of the public support the doctors’ demands, a close 41.3 percent do not. Opposition to the strike is more clear-cut: 56.3 percent do not support it, while only 36.5 percent do.

Speaking to PopTV, Kuštrin commented:

The national medical union Fides called a general strike of the country's doctors and dentists last Tuesday to stress the need for better working conditions. The strike is a so-called "soft" strike, meaning that doctors will only work a forty-hour week with the possibility of only ten hours of overtime. The strike does not intend to shut down the country's healthcare system, but many warn that over time, it could end up doing just that.

Among the doctors' demands are a forty-hour work week, less overtime, increased salary and more doctors. So far, the government has only agreed to allow greater enrollment in the medical training programs, and to facilitate the employment of foreign specialists. Fides is also concerned about the demographic situation among Slovenia's doctors. In the next five years, some 500 to 700 are expected to retire.

Last minute negotiations between Slovenske Železnice and the Union of Railroad Transportation of Slovenia failed, and so an unusual strike was called. Starting on Friday, some - but not all - attendants at railroad stations began to refuse to sell tickets or give passengers information. However, passengers may not even notice that the strike is on.

At most stations, other Slovenske Železnice employees will sell tickets and passengers will only run into problems in some of the smaller stations. However, tickets can be bought from conductors on board trains, which will ensure the smooth operation of the country's rail system throughout the strike.

The country’s Union of Education and Science (SVIZ) also threatened a strike this week over a collective agreement for education. It remains unclear whether negotiations will be able to avert yet another strike.

On Monday, a special session of Krško’s city council called on the government to refuse ratification of the agreement with Croatia on the Krško nuclear plant (JEK). The city council does not agree with the decision to put ownership of JEK at 50:50 between Slovenia and Croatia, who jointly financed its construction more than twenty years ago.

Upon Slovene independence, it took control over JEK and made substantial improvements, which many in Krško believe should give Slovenia more of a say in its future. The city council believes a better solution is for Slovenia to buy out Croatia’s share in the plant in order to have full ownership of the disputed plant.

According to State Secretary for Energy Robert Golob, who took part in the session, the agreement must be ratified by 1 July. Otherwise, new negotiations will have to take place, which could drag on for several years.

Worldwide, the report finds that 37 journalists were killed on the job in 2001, while only 24 were killed the year before. The number of journalists in prison rose much more dramatically, from 81 in 2000 to 118 in 2001.

The European Commission’s decision to set quotas and higher tariffs on steel imports in retaliation against new tariffs the United States put on steel earlier this month threatened Slovenia’s steel industry this week. When Washington raised steel tariffs on 5 March, Slovene steelmakers were mostly exempted. It is not clear whether they will get similar treatment from Brussels.

According to Delo, the EC’s decisions could threaten the very existence of Slovenia’s steel industry. Local steelmakers sell as much as 70 percent of their production to EU states.

The fact that the Slovene steel industry is currently in the middle of a restructuring program makes it particularly sensitive. The fact that Brussels suggested the restructuring has not gone unnoticed by those opposed to the new tariffs.

The government’s Statistical Office will begin the country’s first census since independence on Monday, 1 April. Training for more than 10,000 census takers ended on Wednesday. The census takers will visit each households in the country, though respondents will have the option of completing the forms themselves.

Controversial questions regarding ethnicity and religion will be on the forms, but it is up to the respondent if they wish to provide an answer.

The census forms will be processed beginning 16 April, and according to Banovec, census data which is important to the development planning of the state and towns will be released on 14 June.

The 2002 census, the first since Slovenia’s independence in July 1991, is scheduled to run from 1 to 15 April. The last census of the Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia was conducted in the spring of 1991, while Slovenia was still part of that state.

The dailies Finance and Dnevnik each ran an article this week documenting two major projects which will be undertaken at the Metelkova Mesto complex beginning this year.

Finance detailed the plans for the youth hostel, which will occupy the former military prison within the complex. The project is being funded by the city of Ljubljana and the Student Organization of the University of Ljubljana, and the hostel will ultimately be under the authority of the Institute for Youth Tourism.

The project is already open to public bidding, and renovation of the building is expected to run from May to October. The hostel will open as soon as it gets a legal permit, which is expected before the end of this year.

The hostel will include tourist and conference services, a cafeteria and library. In total, there should be close to 100 beds.

Dnevnik detailed plans for moving the Academy of Theatre, Radio, Film and Television (AGRFT), the Academy of Music and the Academy of Fine Arts (ALU) to the Metelkova complex. The three academies would pool their administrations and resources in the new location, which planners believe will be to the benefit of all three.

The article in Dnevnik also addressed what will happen to the alternative cultural scene at Metelkova after the development projects are realized. Mencinger said that "the alternative scene will not be ‘expelled’ from Metelkova." According to him, the alternative scene and the academies dovetail to the benefit of each.

The alternative scene of Metelkova Mesto is the subject of a major installation at the 25th International Biennial of Contemporary Art, which began in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on 23 March. The biennial is one of the most important international exhibitions of the year, featuring 190 artists from 70 countries.

The metropolis segment of the biennial will feature Sao Paulo, Caracas, New York, Johannesburg, Istanbul, Peking, Tokyo, Sydney, London, Berlin and Moscow. A twelfth project will be a utopian metropolis based on a project by Russian Constructivist Vladimir Tatlin.

• According to Speaker of Parliament Borut Pahor, the exact dates of this year’s presidential and local elections remain unknown. For now, all that is known is that presidential candidates must be registered between 10 August and 9 October and the election must be held between 13 October and 17 November. Registration for candidates in the local elections must be between 10 July and 18 September and the election must take place between 22 September and 17 November.

• According to Eurostat and the national Statistical Office, wages in Slovenia rose more than three times higher than the European average in 2001. Real growth of the average gross salary in the last quarter of 2001 in Slovenia was three percent, while among EU states it was only 0.9 percent. Slovenia’s real wage growth has been well above the EU average for several years. In 1998, it was 1.8 percent versus 1.0; in 1999 it was 3.5 versus 0.9; and in 2000, it was 3.1 versus 0.4.

• Fares for public transportation will go up next week. Starting 1 April, fare for city buses will go up from SIT 210 to 230. One-day passes will be SIT 660, weeklies 2750 and monthlies 6250. Monthly passes for students will be 3300, for pensioners 3950 and for senior citizens 2650. Annual passes will go from SIT 70,000 to 81,000.