Speakers
Dr. Janez Podobnik
Ministry of the Environment and Spatial Planning of the Republic of Slovenia
Janez Podobnik has been the Ministry of Environment and Spatial Planning since 2004. He started his political career as mayor of the municipality of Idrija in 1990, to which today's municipality of Cerkno then belonged, and after the creation of the new municipalities, he was mayor of Cerkno from 1994 to 1998. He has also been a municipal councillor since 1990.
He was first elected a member of the National Assembly in 1992, and then again in 1996 and in 2000. In November 1996 he was elected president of the National Assembly. At the parliamentary elections in 2000, he also became leader of the deputy group of the Slovenian People's Party, vice-chair of the Parliamentary Committee for Foreign Affairs, a member of the Constitutional Commission, member of the Committee for Culture, Education, Youth, Science and Sport, a member of the Standing Orders Commission and of the Commission for Relations with Slovenes across the Border and throughout the World.
During the last parliamentary term, as parliamentary representative of the Slovene People's Party, he was an observer and then member of the European Parliament, where he played an active part in the Committee for Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism. He also took part in the work of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, as a member of the delegation of the National Assembly of the RS.rman, Italian and French.
Mr Podobnik was born in Cerkno on 17 September 1959. After graduating from the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Ljubljana in 1984, he first spent eight years as a general physician in the Idrija and Cerkno region.