Slovenia

Health Minister Tadej Ostrc is facing scrutiny after an investigation suggested public funds were used to purchase advertising that was never actually published. Separately, the minister is proposing a new law to increase alcohol and tobacco sales, a move reportedly influenced by external parties. Meanwhile, the government continues to push a judicial overhaul that critics say would allow the state to infringe on the privacy of citizens' phones.

The lifestyle of the political class is currently providing more news than their policies. Boris Mijić began building a 320-square-meter house immediately after the election. The MP is also facing reports that he wears a €6,000 watch and owes wages to workers. Elsewhere, Rok Snežič has requested the state pay for his legal representation while continuing to drive a Mercedes, and Hungarian bank executives visited Janez Janša’s office shortly before their bank denied a loan to the national broadcaster.

A demographic expert, Aleš Primc, has violated the constitutional separation of church and state by hanging a cross at his ministry. In the capital, police are investigating a kidnapping in which a man was lured from a restaurant by a woman and bundled into a van. Not all news from Ljubljana is so precarious: a local therapy is successfully preventing amputations for patients who had previously run out of options.