Euro Fever to Reach Peak at Special Ceremony

The Cankarjev dom conference centre is to be venue of the event that is to see the participation of the current EU chair, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet and Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi, among others.

Other heads of government expected to attend are Luxembourg's Jean-Claude Juncker, Belgium's Guy Verhofstadt, Greece's Kostas Karamanlis, Latvia's Aigars Kalvitis, Hungary's Ferenc Gyurcsany and Slovakia's Robert Fico. The latter two are also expected to be paying a working visit to Slovenia.

The event "A Welcome to the Euro", which is organised by the Slovenian government and central bank, is being billed as an opportunity for EU member states to celebrate the expansion of the eurozone to 13 members and stress the symbolic commitment to further expansion.

Along with the main ceremony, a conference is to be held on the euro in the nearby Grand Hotel Union, featuring finance ministers and central bankers from around Europe. Its participants are to join the ceremony at Cankarjev dom later in the day.

This will be one of the biggest high-level events Slovenia has ever hosted and it is seen as an important test in organisation as the country prepares for the presidency of the EU in the first half of 2008. It is expected to cost EUR 650,000.

Just prior to the ceremony, an exhibition is to be opened at the Cankarjev dom conference centre on the history of Slovenian money.

While the first guests arrived in Slovenia on Sunday, most of the heads of government are expected in the country on Monday morning.

Prime Minister Janez Jansa will host lunch for the visiting heads of government at Grand hotel Toplice at the lakeside resort of Bled in the afternoon, whereas Finance Minister Andrej Bajuk is to entertain his counterparts at Brdo pri Kranju, some 25 kilometres northwest of Ljubljana.

Jansa is also hosting a number of bilateral meetings with the participants of the event. Among others, he is to meet Trichet, the visiting Hungarian and Slovak counterparts, his Latvian counterpart Aigars Kalvitis and Greek counterpart Kostas Karamanlis.