Archives for January 13th, 2006

"Death to capitalism" — graffiti on a Slovenian bank.

In 2004, Croatia put a moratorium on Sunday shopping. Shortly thereafter, and not uncoincidentally, retailers reported a 20% drop in sales and started firing employees. Within the same year, the ill-considered ban was succesfully struck down on constitutional grounds and the damage was reversed.

Two years later, Slovenia has decided to begin its own journey into folly. As of January 1, 2006, the inexplicably idiotic ban on Sunday shopping has officially come to the sunny side of Alps. It’s been a long time brewing. Back in 2003, there was a referendum on whether shops should be open on Sunday. Only 27.4% of people bothered to vote; everyone else was busy shopping for stuff. The referendum passed easily, despite the fact that it might not (and probably does not) have the support of the general public. A poll taken yesterday on the ever-popular show Trenja showed a 58-42 split in favor of being allowed to go shopping on Sundays, with about 20,000 votes recorded.

I happen to think that this is the kind of question that the market should settle by itself, but that’s just me. I can say that, so far, I haven’t heard a single decent argument about why shutting shops down on Sunday is a good thing. The idea that Sunday is the Lord’s day and that Slovenes should be going to church (as has been suggested) is preposterous — not just because state-sponsored religion is a lousy idea (see Article 7 of the constitution) but because Slovenia also happens to be notably irreligious.

Nominally about 57% of people are Catholic, but this includes people who never go to church, can’t name the apostles, and think Jesus Christ is a character from an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical. In short, the number of practicing Catholics is significantly lower. Meanwhile, around 35-38% of people here are atheists and non-believers, making Slovenia the 18th most atheistic country on Earth. In other words, countries that are deeply religious, and where atheists are in the single digits (Croatia, Italy, U.S.A.) have their stores open on Sunday. But Slovenia should have them closed to satisfy a significantly smaller Catholic population?

Another common justification is that stores should be closed to protect small retailers. Little grocers, the reasoning goes, can’t keep up with the hypermarkets. The Sunday ban helps level the playing field. The problem, of course, is that little retailers can’t be saved. They don’t have a chance either way. Remember the final scene in Return of the Jedi? It goes:

Darth Vader: Luke, help me take this mask off.
Luke: But you’ll die!
Darth Vader: Nothing can stop that now.

 Well, nothing can stop this now: small stores are going to get rolled over by large European retailers, like Aldi, Lidl, E.Leclerc, etc… And, considering how wildly expensive stuff like food is here, that’s probably a good thing. Go take a look at the EU Consumer Price Index for Food, and you’ll notice that Slovenia is the second-most expensive place for foodstuffs in the entire Union. (Only Hungary is worse.) That’s madness.

Another argument for the ban is that it allows women to spend more time with their children, thus strengthening the family unit. Again, nevermind that Slovenes are the least fertile people in Europe, and that their specialty seems to be not having children at all. The big question that this raises for me personally is this: my job requires me to work almost every weekend, and many holidays too — why am I not being extended similar privileges? Why should the government discriminate against me (and against other people who have to work at inconvenient times) while others enjoy parliamentary protection? Article 14 of the Slovenian constitution clearly lays out equality before the law, and yet "Sundays off" is only bestowed on a privileged minority.

This ban is a mistake on many levels, especially when you consider that Slovenia could have courted a lot of Austrian money and tourists on Sundays. (Austria has a similar ban on Sunday shopping — but keep in mind that they’re a wealthy country not trying to "catch up" economically with the EU.) Instead, Slovenian shoppers will now head out to Italy, Croatia, and (to a lesser extent) Hungary on Sundays and pour their money into their economies.

As one Italian mall manager near the border told Slovenian television: "I don’t know how Slovenes feel about it, but it’s good for us."