SLOVENIA OBJECTS TO EU'S BUREAUCRATIC ATTITUDE

LJUBLJANA, May 29 (Hina) - Slovenia will insist more strongly on an individual approach in connection with joining the European Union, leading Slovene politicians have said recently. This is most evident in statements regarding the setting of access deadlines, a debate on the free flow of labour, and a decision on keeping duty-free shops on the Austrian and Italian borders open this tourist season despite requests from Brussels to the contrary. "Brussels has to understand that in Slovenia courts are a completely independent branch of authority and that it is impossible to include them in the dynamics and schedule of our negotiations with the EU," Prime Minister Janez Drnovsek said on Tuesday during a visit to Luxembourg. He thus stood behind the Constitutional Court which suspended until further notice a decision on the closing of duty-free shops only days before an already passed "European" law, which ordered turning them into ordinary shops, comes into force. Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel, in an interview with the German weekly Fokus, criticised a view among the 15 EU members advocating that small but successful countries should wait for integration into Europe for bigger ones to rise up to the challenge. "Some think that Slovenia, which is capable of signing the agreement with the EU next year, should wait until bigger states are ready to join. We don't believe in that scenario," he asserted. Rupel also objected to restrictions on the free flow of labour which Germany and Austria insist on imposing for Slovenes, not on Slovenia's account, once they have joined the EU. "Slovenia is not a state of emigrants but a country with immigrants. Many come to work here," the foreign minister said. He hopes the EU will treat Slovenia as a separate and successful country in transition which will bring very few problems. (hina) ha sb