Can Faymann improve relations with Austria's Slovenian minority?

Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann travels to Slovenia today, Wednesday, on his first official visit to the country. The trip is overshadowed by Austria's long-time failure to erect additional German-Slovenian road signs in Carinthia, the state bordering on Slovenia. The daily Delo wonders whether Faymann can improve relations with the Slovenian minority in Austria: "The [governing] Social Democratic Party SPÖ has many politicians without a Nazi past and even a Slovenian woman in high posts. Will it be able to put the two populations on an equal footing after 40 years, and do more to protect minorities? Slovenia, which often doesn't quite know what to make of its countrymen on the other side of the Karawanken [mountains separating Austria and Slovenia], says that Faymann should quickly pick up where his predecessors Wolfgang Schüssel and Alfred Gusenbauer failed. Otherwise Carinthia could have even more surprises in store for Slovenians."

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