It seems that a 45 member protest panel in Maribor will not last for long. Protest groups are leaving the panel one after another. The mayor Andrej Fištravec said he regretted their decision. Foto: BoBo
It seems that a 45 member protest panel in Maribor will not last for long. Protest groups are leaving the panel one after another. The mayor Andrej Fištravec said he regretted their decision. Foto: BoBo

They say that they wanted a creative and democratic panel in which citizens were not only listened to but also heard by the city’s authorities. Past discussions and meetings, they add, were not productive at all. After the evaluation of individual meetings, it turned out that such a panel was not the adequate forum where deals on complex topics can be reached. The groups think that civil society organizations will need to develop different forms of cooperation, as the mayor and his colleagues were not cooperating fast enough and answering the panel’s requests. The mayor said he regretted their decision.