A slovene history society politics culture

 

 

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investment and capital. In 2003, the government decided that Slovenia was ready for 

membership of the European Union, despite criticism from the ‘Slovene Spring’ opposition, 

which claimed that government policy was ineffective and the Slovene government too slow 

in reducing the development deficit behind the EU average. In the middle of December 2002, 

Slovene representatives, together with those of nine other candidate countries, successfully 

completed accession negotiations at the European Council summit in Copenhagen. On 16 

April 2003, all ten new EU members signed the accession treaty in Athens. Slovenia’s EU 

membership was still supported by a convincing majority  of the population, whereas public 

support for joining Nato was less certain, which led all the major political parties to agree that 

Slovenia’s citizens should express their opinion on joining the EU and Nato in a referendum. 

The turnout of the referendum held on 23 March 2003 was 60.4%, with 89.6% of these voting 

for Slovenia to join the EU, and 66.1% supporting Nato membership. Slovenia became a Nato 

member on 29 March 2004 and a full member of the EU on 1 May of the same year. 

 

But while Slovenia had achieved its main foreign political goals by the middle of 

2004, the domestic political situation became increasingly divided by conflict. The governing 

coalition, headed by the LDS, which had been in power almost continuously since 1992, was 

steadily losing  the support of its voters due to the intransigence with which it enforced its 

views, the continual and never fully explained corruption scandals, unresponsive public 

administration and an ineffective judicial system, as well as numerous unfulfilled promises. 

On the other hand, economic growth was over 4% in 2004, inflation had fallen to 3.6% and 

the number of registered unemployed had dropped to 10.5%. Opinion polls showed that under 

these circumstances people were largely satisfied with the material state of affairs, but were 

much less happy with the development of democracy, with the work of state bodies and 

especially with the functioning of the National Assembly. Parliamentary deputies and leading 

party figures often engaged in lengthy and unproductive debates, and when they failed to 

reach an agreement, resorted to the possibility of a ‘popular referendum’, as prescribed in the 

constitution, even on issues such as the legal regulation of the right to artificial insemination, 

the privatisation of the railways, and Sunday and holiday-opening for shops. 

 

In the second half of 2003 and the first half of 2004, the issue of immigration from the 

former Yugoslav republics again set off heated debate among political parties. This was still 

connected with the Erased. Since the 1999 verdict of the Constitutional Court, which had 

found that the erasure was illegal, around 14,000 of the Erased had acquired residence, and 

some had even acquired Slovene citizenship, but around 4,000 of them remained without 

documents or rights. In 2003, the Constitutional Court again decided that the authorities must 

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arrange their legal status retroactively and without delay. The National Assembly, with the 

support of the government majority, passed a law to enact the court order. But the ‘Spring 

parties’ and the Slovene National Party (SNS) did not agree with the adoption of the law and 

the measures it laid down, claiming that the Erased were largely themselves to blame for their 

unresolved status, and that they should therefore be dealt with on a case-by-case basis to find 

out whether or not they met the criteria for permanent residence. They also called for a new 

constitutional law to limit the possibility of the Erased demanding compensation for the time 

in which their rights as citizens were denied. Since the government and the opposition were 

unable to reach an agreement, the ‘Spring parties’, led by the SDS (which changed its name 

from the Social Democratic Party to the Slovene Democratic Party in 2003), demanded a 

referendum. The referendum was held on 4 April 2004, and had a turnout of just 31.5%, but 

almost 95% of those voting opposed the government’s law. This left the legal status of those 

of the Erased still without permanent residence or citizens’ rights in Slovenia unresolved. The 

government’s attempt to finally resolve the problem had ended in defeat. 

 

In the spring of 2004, just over six months before the parliamentary elections, the 

governing coalition was again – as in 2000 – abandoned by the joint Christian Democrats and 

Slovene People’s Party, which a year earlier had reverted to the name Slovene People’s Party 

(SLS). However, this time its departure did not cause a government crisis, since the other 

governing parties retained a strong enough majority in the National Assembly. Nevertheless, 

the elections to the European Parliament in June 2004 clearly indicated that LDS political 

domination was nearing its end after almost 12 years at the centre of Slovene politics. The 

turnout for the European elections was just 28.4%, but the highest share of the vote (23.6%) 

was surprisingly won by Nova Slovenija (New Slovenia – NSi), which had been founded in 

2000 by Christian Democrats dissatisfied with the merger of the SKD and SLS. The LDS 

came second with 21.9% of the vote, while the  SDS came third with 17.7%. The LDS 

leadership consoled itself by claiming that the election results were largely due to the low 

turnout, but the ‘Slovene Spring’ opposition, headed by the SDS, was boosted by this electoral 

success and in the months leading up to the parliamentary elections controlled the tempo and 

subject of pre-election debate and discussions. The SDS won a convincing victory at the 

parliamentary elections on 3 October 2004, gaining 29.7% of the vote, with the Liberal 

Democrats second on 22.9%. The ‘Slovene Spring’ coalition had a majority in parliament and 

comprised the SDS, the SLS, Nova Slovenija and DeSUS. The SDS president, Janez Janša, 

became the new prime minister. 

 

In this way, Slovenia underwent a major political turnaround immediately after joining 

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