The Inštitut NAPREJ took forward the theme of the first New Year’s Day Consultation, ’24 as a Year of Opportunities’. The starting point of the moderator Aleš Cantarutti was that Slovenia does not have a breakthrough strategy or vision of where we want to go as a society and what subsystems we need to get there. The debate – announced as the first in a series of efforts to articulate a programme document on the future of the country – showed that uncertainty about the way forward is a problem for the whole of Europe, and that Slovenia is not completely without options for improving its position, with the caveat that it can only be as strong globally as it is within the European Union.
Opportunities for this strengthening were also presented, although the invited panellists Igor Papič, Minister for Science and Innovation, Franjo Bobinac, President of the Slovenian Olympic Committee, Vladimir Prebilič, Mayor of Kočevje and President of the Association of Slovenian Municipalities, and Boštjan Gorjup, Director of BSH, home appliances Nazarje, also listed a number of problems, both at home and in the current situation in a world torn apart by two major wars.
Perhaps the opportunities are most evident in sport, which this year will once again be on home soil, in Europe, in Paris, with the Olympic Games. Franjo Bobinac is looking forward to a record-breaking Slovenian representation, not only in terms of medals, but also in terms of the number of ball games, with a best-case scenario of as many as four national teams representing our colours. He also announced the creation of an Association of Slovenian Sports Officials active in international sports organisations. In addition to exchanging experiences, they would work more cohesively in the international arena, and perhaps in a decade or so bring the Winter Olympics to Slovenia, in cooperation with a neighbouring country.
Igor Papič reflected on the opportunities and situation in science, saying that he needs to think not one but ten years ahead, and that innovation is key to this development. He is thinking about how to increase the share of public funds for innovation and higher education and is moderately optimistic about this, but the main problem of our science is that it does not have sufficiently developed mechanisms for the transfer of knowledge from the academic to the productive sphere, and that for everything we would like to do as When we invest money in innovation, we must necessarily think about the multiplication of this investment; therefore, he stresses, it must be distributed to those who are expected to improve the invested funds more quickly or to a greater extent. He also highlighted a problem affecting society as a whole, not just the scientific community, which is already critically short of adequate human resources. At a time when inflation is at its lowest, we do not have enough doctors, teachers, engineers, physicists, etc. Since this is also a problem for the Union as a whole, he thought, it could organise entrance examinations for its faculties in other areas of the world, where there are more young people than opportunities for good studies, such as Africa.
Among the 60 or so participants in the meeting, from different spheres of society, from business, academia and politics, was Bojan Kumer, Minister for the Environment, Climate and Energy, who warned that all the opportunities will be of no use if we are hit by more disasters like the floods in August. The Minister indirectly blamed this on the inaction not only of our own society, but of European society as a whole in the face of climate change. We are being spared a decade of missed action in this area, he stressed.
Vladimir Prebilič reports first-hand on how local communities responded to the summer storm. The President of the Association of Slovenian Municipalities notes that the rescue and safety system worked well in principle in the event of floods, but that there are problems in the concrete management of individual municipalities, when important decisions have to be taken immediately. He also sees a problem of governance at global level; in his view, Europe is weak and internally divided because it lacks strong statesmen, nor the strength and strategy for today’s times, in which wars for public opinion are becoming commonplace and acceptable. By contrast, China, perhaps alone in the world, has a clear strategy, namely to become a superpower and to be recognised as such by the world.
Entrepreneur Boštjan Gorjup was among those hard hit by the August floods, but he also got production back on its feet in record time, which he attributes to good social organisation, solidarity and agility. This efficiency, which surprised even our German partners, is worth maintaining, as it opens up opportunities for us going forward, he stressed. It was also on the basis of this experience that he decided to open another factory in Slovenia, even though operating costs have been rising steadily since the outbreak of the epidemic and then with the war in Ukraine, and his industry has also been plagued by a shortage of semiconductors. These are at the heart of the race for world dominance, and China, for example, is now paying three times more for them than for oil. The neuralgic point for this and for the industry is Taiwan, on which he stressed – as did all the other panellists – that the world community must prevent it from becoming embroiled in a possible war with China.
(B.M.)
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