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In Slovenia, the political scene has had to overcome several hurdles as a result of last month's elections to the European parliament. As in many other European countries, voters in Slovenia gave strong support to opposition parties. Now, only three months ahead of the Slovenian parliamentary elections, it is more than obvious that the actions and debates of political parties are still motivated by the spirit of the pre-election period.

The Hungarian Railway History Park - the first interactive railway park in Europe - exhibits more than 100 railway vehicles on about 70 thousand square metres, at a former shunting yard in Budapest. The yard was opened in 1913, and was the biggest of its kind at the time. Today's park was opened in July 2000, but renovation has been going on ever since. The Hungarian State Railways has established a Nostalgia Company that has now begun to operates the park.

Growing criticism from Britain, including such celebrities as the author of the popular Harry Potter children's books JK Rowling has resulted in much discussion on psychiatric care in the Czech Republic, especially on the use of so-called caged and netted beds - beds surrounded by iron bars or nets used to control aggressive or confused patients.

Before Slovakia's accession to the European Union many worried that the cheap and skilled labour force will be the first item to emigrate to the EU. Well, surprise, surprise, the mundane subject of butter has proved to be the front runner.

For the 14th consecutive year Warsaw is the venue for the Mozart Festival. The event is the brainchild of Stefan Sutkowski, the artistic director of the Warsaw Chamber Opera who many years ago conceived the idea of producing ALL of Mozart's opera. Gradually the central idea of the project emerged - that of blending the sound of the music with stage action in an interior, modeled on the old theatres of Vienna and Prague for which these operas were originally written.

Poland's agriculture may be giving the European Union a headache, what with hundreds of thousands of small, uneconomical farms, but there's also an upside to this traditional farming. Poland is an ideal breeding ground for storks. In fact, a quarter of the world's stork population nests in Poland. July is the month where Europeans count their storks, this great operation includes almost all European states with special emphasis laid on Poland which for years has boasted the largest colonies of those red legged frog eaters.

Slovakia has approximately 5 million inhabitants. There are another 2 million 000 Slovaks living outside the country. Many feared that this number would even increase after May 1st, when the country entered the EU and labour markets of some of the member countries opened themselves to the newcomers.

In the recent European Parliament elections, only one Green Party MP - from Latvia - was elected out of all the ten new EU states. A fairly poor result, given the fact that improving the environment was once fairly high on the agenda for people in the former Soviet bloc. So why did green parties do so badly? That's a question Rob Cameron put to Jan Haverkamp, a Dutch environmentalist who's been working in the region for twenty years.

Britain wants to improve its presence in Hungary - that was the message behind a visit by the Lord Mayor of the City of London, Alderman Robert Finch to Budapest last week. Alderman Finch opened several business seminars and launched the days trading on the Budapest Stock Exchange.

The Slovenian city of Maribor is currently hosting the annual "Lent" music festival. With around half a million visitors expected, it's one of the biggest festivals of its kind in Europe. Radio Slovenia International's Ksenija Samardzija - Matul reports.