NSI

Ljubljana – Parliamentary working bodies were set up at Wednesday’s session and can now start their work despite the fact that the opposition Democrats (SDS) did not nominate their candidates for chairs and vice-chairs in protest over the breakdown of these posts.

Ljubljana – The coalition New Slovenia (NSi) is looking at an improved result in Sunday’s general election compared to the 2018 vote, which party president Matej Tonin likened to “winning a medal”. He noted that the NSi would likely be in the opposition in the next term, where it would be constructive as Slovenia is facing many challenges.

Ljubljana – Agriculture Minister Jože Podgoršek resigned on Wednesday after he became the target of media scrutiny over lack of clarity regarding the payment of his weekend stay at an upscale hotel in Bohinj in January. He said he was “resigning exclusively due to the late payment of the bill”, and was accepting responsibility for this.

Ljubljana – New Slovenia (NSi) met for a virtual congress on Saturday in preparation for next year’s general election where their leader Matej Tonin said this Christian democratic party should get the mandate to form a government in order to avoid the “inefficiency” of the centre-left and the “sharpness” of the senior partner in the current ruling coalition.

Ljubljana – The newspaper Delo writes that Prime Minister Janez Janša, with his tweets targeting the European Parliament’s delegation on a fact-finding mission to Slovenia, damaged Slovenia’s reputation and the credibility of its EU presidency, which it says is politically dead.

Today is the last day of visits to physical addresses in the national census. Those who counted electronically will be able to send the code received from the system to a special email opened by the National Statistical Institute.

At the moment, nearly five million and two hundred thousand Bulgarians have been counted, which is just under 75% of the population.

Ljubljana – Speaker Igor Zorčič will not call a plenary session to debate the opposition Left’s party programme after the coalition Democrats (SDS) and New Slovenia (NSi) requested this last week, arguing the programme contained elements suggesting the Left could act against the country’s constitutional order.

Ljubljana – Simona Kustec is staying on as education, science and sport minister as the National Assembly was eight votes short of voting her out of office. 38 MPs voted for her dismissal, while 41 opposed it after a 16-hour debate, which started on Monday and ended just after midnight.

Bulgarians spent significantly more money on cultural recreation, leisure and entertainment in 2017, reported Eurostat's analysis of household spending in the EU for recreation and culture during the period in question. According to the analysis, the Bulgarians spent about 8 per cent of their total income for cultural entertainment expenses in 2017, registering 7.5 per cent in 2007.

Bulgaria's trade gap widened to 6.3 billion levs ($3.66 billion/3.22 billion euro) in the first ten months of the year, from 3.0 billion levs in the same period of 2017, the country's statistical office, NSI, said on Tuesday, quoting preliminary data.