Discovering Europe
Waking up Ljubljana
Popular mayor of Ljubljana, Zoran Jankovic, and founder of Mercator, one of the country’s leading retailers has plans to put Ljubljana firmly on the EU map.
© Debra Percival
Unfortunately Ljubljana fell asleep decades ago, and we have just started to wake the city up. The main projects of Ljubljana are more than 20 years old. We intend to change that, which is also the reason for creating this vision of the city – Ljubljana 2025.
Its main aim is renewal in all spheres of city life: ecological, cultural, social, business, urbanistic, architectural, etc. The target is traffic reduction to save energy and cut back on emissions and maximise the use of space through.
In 2004, Ljubljana represented 35.6% of the Slovenian gross domestic product (data for 2005 will be available this December). It is expanding fast, becoming a regional city. Its region numbers more than 500,000 inhabitants.
Creative culture, innovative science, high-quality universities, top-level healthcare and openness to international cooperation form the character of this European capital city, which is competitive in terms of quality of the environment, development opportunities, safety and hospitality.
Ljubljana will develop into an ideal city – a historical city of creative people tailored to people’s needs, an environmentally friendly city situated between two clean rivers and a pan-Slovenian metropolis, a cosmopolitan city at the centre of the national territory, at the intersection of European macro-regions.
The EU presidency is important for the city of Ljubljana, mainly from a promotional point of view. We intend to present our city as an open, tolerant, modern European capital with great development potential. In May 2008, we are preparing a European conference, where two main topics will be discussed: relations and cooperation between the state and its capital, and multicultural dialogue.
