The words “politics” or “politician” sometimes can be understood negatively. People don’t like politicians at all or only particular parties. However, it is just an organization of a state, governmental system, if to omit persuasion and propaganda issues and public fraud. In its pure sense, this is a beneficial field for all humanity.
Slovenia, as well as other European countries, does all the best to create a transparent, nationally beneficial policy in order to help people live, work and enjoy well in their own country. The country is a parliamentary democracy republic with a multi-party system with the President as the head.
Now, we have the result of lasting transformations and a lot of work. How Slovenia did it after the communistic regime? How is the state organized now? And what people think about it? Let’s find out it!
Internal Policy
To begin with, Slovenia is a parliamentary democracy republic with a multi-party system. This means that people with different backgrounds and different worldviews can vote for groups that can represent their interests. Parties can go into coalitions in order to gather political power for influencing some decisions.
The president is the head of the state. He/she should be elected on voting among the population of the entire country. The term is 5 years with the possibility of a maximum of two ones. The president holds a representative role in the international arena as well as the chief commander of the Slovenian military forces.
The government of Slovenia has an executive role. This means that they decide how to rule the country. It is headed by the prime minister and the council of ministers or cabinet. Every minister had its own purpose on which he/she is working. For instance, the minister of education or the minister of finances. Today, the prime minister is Janez Janša from Slovenian Democratic Party, chosen on 13 March 2020.
The legislative power is in the hands of the National Assembly and in a minor part in the National Council. This means that they decide whether to cancel, apply, or approve a new law or other national-wide important documents. Moreover, they chose the prime minister and the cabinet of ministers. It consists of 90 members, 88 of which are elected by the proportional system, and the other two are representatives of Hungarian and Italian minorities. The term of their service is four years. The President of the National Assembly of Slovenia requires 46 votes to be elected. Currently, this position is held by Dejan Židan.
The one fundamental law is The Constitution of the Republic of Slovenia. It is a document where it’s written the most important acts. The constitution was adopted on 23 December 1991. It has been amended several times. The four most important amendments were done in 1997, 2000, 2003, 2006. Some of the reasons were adopting a proportional voting system and fixing the law in order to reach European standards before entering the EU.
The highest judiciary power is the Supreme Court. Every judicial court in Slovenia is under the law of the constitution of the republic. The lowest courts are divided into several types. Among them are civil and criminal ones. Also, there are four appellate courts located in Celje, Koper, Ljubljana, and Maribor. The Constitutional Court of Slovenia is separated from the regular judiciary system.
Administrative Division
The Government Building and President’s Office is one building and is located in Ljubljana. This is the capital city of Slovenia. The country is divided into 212 municipalities (občine, singular – občina). Eleven of them are urban municipalities with a higher degree of autonomy. The Slovenian language is an official language on all the territory of the country. However, there are additions. For example, Hungarian is a second official language of three municipalities in Prekmurje and Italian is a second official language of four municipalities in the Slovene Littoral. The three biggest cities are Ljubljana, Maribor, and Kranj.
Every municipality has its own mayor (župan), who is elected for the term of four years. Every municipality also has a Head of the Municipal Administration. He/she is appointed by a mayor and is responsible for the functioning of a local administration.
External Policy
From the beginning of independent Slovenia, it took a course of cooperating with neighboring countries. Therefore, Austria, Croatia, Hungary, and Italy. Therefore, their relations are generally good and cooperative.
Slovenia is a member of numerous world organizations. Among them are European Council, European Commission, the World Bank, European Court, the Red Cross, Interpol, International Monetary Fund, OSCE, UNESCO, International Olympic Committee, World Health Organization, World Trade Organization, and two the most important ones are European Union and NATO.
Slovenia is a member of the European Union since 1 May 2004. It adopted the Euro currency on 1 January 2007. Furthermore, Slovenia is a Schengen area member since 21 December 2007. There are eight members of the European Parliament from Slovenia. In the Council of the EU, there are often representatives from the Slovenian government. The Slovenian turn to have the presidency in the Council of European Union was from January till June of 2008. The Commissioner nominated by Slovenia to the European Commission is Janez Lenarčič.
Slovenia joined NATO on 29 March 2004, almost at the same time as the EU. In 2003, the Slovenian government provided a referendum asking whether Slovenian citizens want to join those two organizations. The answer was positive, with 89.61% voting for EU membership and 66.02% for NATO membership. The last one has strengthened Slovenia’s security for sure. Now, Slovenian soldiers are taking part in collective defense and crisis management in the regions where necessary.
Political History
Now, Slovenia is the country with the highest level of life among other Slavic nations. However, it was not pure luckiness but a lot of hard work. Let’s find out how it happened.
In 1990, Slovenia officially gave a right for opposition parties to take part in the elections. Therefore, the Democratic Opposition of Slovenia (DEMOS), a coalition of the Slovenian Democratic Union, the Social Democrat Alliance of Slovenia, the Slovene Christian Democrats, the Farmers’ Alliance, and the Greens of Slovenia, defeated the former Communistic party by gathering 54% of the votes. The new government strongly pursued independence from Yugoslavia.
On that stage, the government made a referendum asking people whether they want to be in separate Slovenia and 88% voted for “yes”. The first country to recognize Slovenia was Croatia. After that, former Soviet states such as Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Ukraine. Thereby, in 1992, it was recognized by the European Economic Community.
From 1992 to 2002, the prime minister was Janez Drnovšek. As he was a brilliant economist, this person redirected the Slovenian economy away from Yugoslavia. This led to building better economic and political links with European countries as well as neighbors. This movement was beneficial a lot for the country.
From 2002 to 2007, it was a time of several significant steps for the country. At that time, Janez Drnovšek was the president. As we mentioned before, Slovenia held two referendums on joining the EU and NATO. From that time, the country’s economy and prosperity grew exponentially, excluding the global economic crisis of 2008. From 2012 and till today, the president of the Republic of Slovenia is Borut Pahor.
Nowadays Political Situation
The Republic of Slovenia went a long path to have what they do have today. Own independence, human rights, protection of the minorities, stability in political, economic, social spheres, and so on. From just a socialistic republic of Yugoslavia, it transformed into a state with the highest living rate among all the Slavic countries. This impresses, but it was done enough of work if to omit some points of luckiness.
First of all, the transformation from a socialistic state to a democratic state with a capitalistic economy was not so hard and harsh as it happened in other post-Yugoslavia or post-Soviet countries. Slovenia happened to be small enough to govern the state most beneficially. On the other hand, there was a lucky point in Slovenia’s location. The territory is a crossroad between post-Latin, Germanic, Balkan, and Slavic nations. This allowed getting a profit from all the said above worlds. Moreover, this allowed joining the European Union on one of the first EU enlargements.
Secondly, Slovenians happened to be highly educated people who have been choosing the right government. It never cultivated disputes with Croatia about some borders. It gave a possibility for minorities to be heard. It created a social-friendly and stable environment to live in the country. Now, Slovenians are living peacefully and wealthy enough to enjoy life. The nature and climate of the country, the access to the sea, the mountains give a lot of possibilities to grow the tourism sphere and look for external investments.
All this is because of the right political organization and governing. Therefore, here it is hard to hear the negative shade of the words “politics” or “politician”. If you do not believe us, you can check it by yourself visiting such a beautiful and politically “amateur” country like Slovenia.
