Posted on 07/11/2002 5:18:53 PM PDT by bob808
LJUBLJANA (Reuters) - The tiny Alpine republic of Slovenia, often ruffled by being confused with Slovakia, took another hit when President Milan Kucan was welcomed to Romania with the wrong national anthem, officials said Thursday.
Kucan stepped off his plane at the start of a state visit in Bucharest Monday to be greeted by the correct Slovenian flags but the wrong music, the president's spokeswoman said, confirming Slovenian newspaper reports.
"Unfortunately, they really played the Slovak anthem," the spokeswoman said. Kucan ignored the slip, newspapers said.
Confusing Slovenia and Slovakia at sporting events and political meetings has been a frequent mistake in the last decade since Slovenia declared independence from the former Yugoslavia and Slovakia split with the Czech Republic.
President Bush ( news - web sites), then governor of Texas, once famously welcomed Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Drnovsek by referring to him as the leader of Slovakia.
Slovenia, with two million people, is smaller and farther south than Slovakia, a Central European state of 5.4 million people.
Both states entertain hopes of being accepted into the European Union ( news - web sites) in the first wave of EU enlargement in 2004.
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