Ljubljana Life

Interview with Zoran Janković:

Ljubljana Life's half-term interview with the City's Mayor

by william wagner, november 2008

Ljubljana Life's editor spoke recently with Ljubljana's Mayor, Zoran Janković, for a follow-up interview to ask some questions about his first two years in office. Before becoming Mayor, Mr. Janković was also well known in Slovenia as the Director of the country's largest retailer, Mercator.

After two years in office, what has the experience been like so far, and what has been your biggest success?

We succeeded to form a strong team, with our chiefs from Ljubljana Holding companies and from the City Administration, to make things work together. Now, after two years, we are able to offer the best level of service to our citizens. I am sure that in our daily work, our citizens do have this experience of receiving better service from the city.

Secondly, the city plan which will be approved after 25 years, will give us new possibilities to develop the city, to realize the main idea – to find harmony, to secure the old part of the city, while also building a newer, more modern technological city.

Besides this, we also gave permission for 5000 new apartments in Ljubljana, and the result is that the price is now near 2000 euro per square meter, which is 35% to 40% less than the year before. In the last two years we also bought 750 social (rent controlled) apartments for our citizens who do not have enough money to buy a new apartment or pay full rent. In the four years before this mandate, the city bought just 400 apartments. That means it was 100 per year and now it's more than 350 per year.

We made many improvements also to our parks and other sights like the Žale cemetery, and we've renovated part of the Ljubljana Castle. If you look back at the 22 projects that I announced two years ago during the election, we have already finished eight of the projects, and the other 14 are currently in progress.

What is the situation with the new Emonika train station complex?

That was also one of my projects, but we finished all the work from the City's side. We did all of our work but then the crisis in the financial sector, which is not a normal crisis, has made everything crazy. Emonika will still happen, but more slowly. They already did the demolition work and prepared the space for parking, but now they need six more months to finish the project documentation for planning permission.

Has the financial crisis affected any other large development projects in the city?

No. From the city, no, it depends on the private investors. But especially at this time, the City must demonstrate two main principles. The first is to show that we have courage and ambition. We must show that we have ideas in order to give confidence to our investors. The second is that we don't give our city companies, our holding company, our energy or garbage collection utilities, any chance to increase their prices for necessary services. We need to show our ambitious programme to develop the city and show from our investments that we are offering a so-called new deal.

Also, while we're on the financial topic, there was this widely publicized disagreement with the state government over 57 million euro that was reallocated from Ljubljana's budget. Do you expect to get that money back, and how will that affect the city's plans for next year?

Yes, we believe that we will get this money back, and this was our main question for five of the different political parties during the recent election. We have this matter now in the court. During the last two years, especially the first year, 2007, we did very well with incoming finances because we sold some city land for very good prices, so we ended up with the same amount of income as the year before. This year, however, at the end of the year we had a problem because we didn't sell as much land to make up for the difference – we would have needed to sell what is required for our own developments. Because of this we need that money and I expect we will get it back.

You made the bold move of closing the city center to automobile traffic, which proved to be quite popular after some initial controversy... do you also have plans for adding more bike lanes to help reduce traffic to the center?

Yes, in 5 years we want to double the number of users of bicycles and pedestrian traffic, from 15% to 30%. And for this we will also get some financial help from Brussels.

In our first interview you mentioned that your salary would be based on your percentage approval rating from Ljubljana's citizens... how did that work out last year?

Very good, and I am awaiting also the results for this year which will come out next month. Last year I had 86% approval and received 86% of my salary, and the other 14% I donated to several different charities. This year my salary is again frozen until December, when we will publish our city newspaper with the questionnaire on our work from 17 November 2007 until 17 November 2008, and see what the feedback will be. I will be glad if it is at the same level, because you must know that every change, at least in the beginning, makes some people unpleased. This year we made many changes that will mean a better life for our citizens, but may leave some unhappy. One example is that we gave permission for building a mosque in Ljubljana, after 40 years. But on Sunday, some nationalist party contacted journalists to say that they will be seeking a referendum against the mosque.

Can we expect to see more or fewer changes in the next two years?

In the next two years we will finish all these projects which we started in the first two years. We've made this promenade from Tivoli to the Castle. But we will also start with another Promenade from East to West near the river, to recreate the same view like a hundred years ago, when the great architect Plečnik had a vision. We will finish the new stadium and start the mosque, we will finish with the sports hall and build new streets. I also didn't mention the two new libraries, and the technological park. We will have a lot to show our citizens from the results of all these programs. We also made much progress with reorganizing the city administration, but the final result of this will be when all of the city's departments move to a single new location. This will mean that citizens can get everything they need from city and state government in just one place.