Please excuse my starting on a note of subjectivity: I very much like Slovenia, the delightful simplicity of its 2 million inhabitants, its romantic landscapes, the pacifist words to its national anthem written by the great poet Preseren. I have visited the country twice, for professional and private reasons. I adore Ljubljana and so does the one of my children who completed an Erasmus exchange in the city. In particular, I admire the courage shown by the people during the war with the Yugoslavian troops, between June and October 1991.
Once independence was proclaimed, it was very quickly internationally recognised; the young republic adopted its constitution at the end of that year. Now a modern democracy, Slovenia was accepted into the Council of Europe without any issues in May 1993. It gradually liberalised its economy. It reached out to the European Union, which had carried out a mediation role during the conflict for independence; in 1996, it signed an association agreement and submitted its formal accession application. Negotiations (from March 1998 to December 2002) began with the signature of the Treaty of Athens, after the overwhelming majority (89.6%) of the Slovenian people had said yes to the EU in March 2003.
The young State became a member of the major international organisations; it joined the UN on 22 May 1992 and NATO on 29 March 2004. Soon after that, on 1 May, it joined the European Union along with nine other countries. But it never rested on its laurels: having worked to comply with the convergence criteria to adopt the single currency, it received the blessing of the European Council in June 2006; at the beginning of the following year, the euro replaced the tolar (see EUROPE 9335/6). Then, on 21 December of the same year, Slovenia joined the Schengen zone. Straight afterwards, it became the first of the 10 new member states to take the Presidency of the Council of the EU and did the position considerable justice (see EUROPE 9571/44). Slovenia, the champion of Europe and a shining light for the rest of the Balkans!
Its economy is robust, its labour force well-qualified. It has greater purchasing power than Greece and Portugal and its poverty rate is one of the lowest in Europe, even though youth unemployment has just risen to 15%. Education is free up to higher education level, it has a high-quality healthcare system and the public sector remains significant. The energy mix is balanced, if overly dependent on lignite. Industry is diversified, with emphasis in recent years on electronics (a robotics rate above the European average), pharmacy, chemistry and even aeronautics, one of the proponents of which is the company Pipistrel, which produces ultra-light and increasingly green aircraft. Finally, the sheer beauty of the country attracts a growing number of tourists.
Yet in this almost perfect country, things started to go wrong even before the pandemic. In itself, the institutional system has given birth to an advanced democracy, with a President of the Republic elected by direct universal suffrage every five years and a national assembly voted into power under the same principle every four years. However, the proliferation of political parties and egotistical squabbling have led to a fragmentation of tactics and government instability.
Up until 2004, the liberal democratic party dominated the coalitions. In that year, the Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS) of Janez Janša headed up a centre-right coalition, which lost the elections of 2008. The following legislative period ended in 2011: early elections, the return of Janša to the helm, quickly toppled by a motion of censure and replaced by a woman, Alenka Bratusek, a Socialist, who was very quickly destabilised. In the 2014 elections, a new centre party came out in front and formed a centre-left political family; but in 2018, this party took a severe battering. Following a campaign dominated by issues related to migration, the point of outright xenophobia, the SDS came first with 25 seats. Marjan Sarec, a former comedian who founded a political party bearing his name, won 13 seats. A painstakingly crafted coalition of six parties (opposing the SDS) allowed Sarec to become the youngest ever head of government in Slovenian history, but he failed to reform the healthcare system – his flagship promise – and internal divisions forced him to step down on 27 January 2020. The President of the Republic held a consultation: should the country go back to the polls? The advent of Covid-19 informed his decision against. This was the moment chosen by Janša to make his dramatic comeback, having managed to rally three other parties behind his own. He was sworn in by the assembly on 3 March, holding a majority of 53 votes out of 90.
Janez Janša came to public notice as long ago as the late 1980s, when he was a brave and patriotic far-left militant, sentenced by the Yugoslavian court martial. He founded his first opposition party. Once the country gained independence, he became Minister of Defence, a position from which he was ousted in 1994, following troublesome rumours. 10 years later, the SDS tasted election victory: Janša became head of government, holding on for four years before the Social Democrats defeated him in the elections. In January 2012, he managed to return to power at the head of a right-wing coalition of five parties. In June, the independence day celebrations were tarnished by the honouring of collaborators and a ban on anti-fascist resistance symbols. Janša was accused of corruption, his coalition unravelled and a vote of no-confidence toppled the government in February 2013.
Cue the descent into hell. On 28 February 2014, the Supreme Court sentenced Janša to 2 years’ imprisonment: in 2006, his government had concluded a major military purchasing contract with the Finnish company Patria; there were allegations of backhanders paid to the SDS. The verdict was challenged by sections of the general public. In April 2015, the Constitutional Court unanimously overturned the sentence: after nine months inside, Janša was once again a free man. His election victory of 2018 was his perfect revenge.
He is a wounded, distrustful and radicalised man who was back in business in spring 2020. Taking over from a comic, nobody would be laughing at him. The Left loathes him and he sees the media as being on their side. His idols are Donald Trump and Viktor Orbán. If attack is the best form of defence, then Twitter is the weapon of choice of modern times. His imprisonment prompted him to tighten up controls. Migrants, predictably enough, are no longer welcome. On 11 May, the official website of the Prime Minister published an extraordinary letter entitled “War with the media”, which argues that the government, its leader and his political party are victims of journalists who lack credibility and are methodologically hostile. (To be continued)
Renaud Denuit