The state on the other hand insists on establishing an integration house, while the municipality led by the mayor Popovič advocates the dispersion of refugees through the 22 local communities. Popovič also offered to refugees and to the state help, financial and otherwise. The mayor of Koper Boris Popovič, just as most of the participants to the meeting, opposed the intentions of the state to settle a larger group of refugees in the settlement of Škofije. He suggested the refugees should be dispersed all over the hinterland of Koper, but the Ministry is not in favour of that solution.
"The integration house is intended for those who in this starting phase are not capable and fit for independent life," the Secretary at the Ministry of Interior Boštjan Šefic explained. Naturally, the participants of the meeting were not placated with such answers. "The refugees would come here because they were threatened in their own land, but it would make us threatened in our land," claimed one of the citizens at the meeting in Škofije.
After more than two hours, when the advocates of refugees were given the opportunity to speak, the present lost their patience, and the opinion of those who disagreed was drowned by loud boos and whistles. It is now obvious that the happening in Škofije has turned into a genuine political fight. The mayor Popovič has already suggested several times that the president of the Škofije local community Edmond Gašpar should resign.
 

G. K., Edi Mavsar, TV Slovenija; translated by G. K.; photo BoBo