Human Rights Ombudsman dr. Zdenka Cebasek - Travnik, who sees environmental issues as one of the most poorly addressed problem fields in Slovenia, hosted a meeting with environmental NGOs and Environment Minister prof. dr. Roko Zarnic on Friday, coming out of the talks confident that cooperation between the minister and NGO will improve.

Ombudsman said that she expected that the Environment and Spatial Planning Ministry will take over meetings with NGOs and work on systemic cooperation.

Her office however remains critical of the ministry when it comes to providing the civil society with access to environmental data. "Things are improving here, but we believe this is happening too slowly," she said.

Dr. Cebasek - Travnik hopes Zarnic, who has demonstrated unprecedented levels of readiness for dialogue, will speed up things here or "even begin a new era in presenting data that certain pulleters still conceal more or less skilfully".

Dr. Zarnic said in his defence that while expectations were high, he had to deal with all the problems accumulated under his predecessors. The ministry is doing what it can in all areas, which is why progress seems slow.

NGOs meanwhile also pointed to some specific problems today, including why the ministry is abandoning the monitoring of light pollution.