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Euractiv
05-07-2025
- Politics
- Euractiv
Slovenia to call consultative referendum on NATO membership
Slovenia's liberal Prime Minister Robert Golob said on Friday that he intends to call a consultative referendum on the country's NATO membership, following a surprise defeat in parliament over a related measure on defence spending. "There are only two ways: either we remain in NATO and pay membership, or we leave the alliance – everything else is populist deceit of the citizens of Slovenia," Golob said, according to a government statement. His referendum is expected to be formally tabled next week. Golob's gambit comes as part of a damage control effort in response to a successful initiative by The Left party, a junior partner in his centre-left coalition, pushing for a consultative referendum on increasing defence expenditure. In an unexpected outcome, Slovenian MPs approved The Left's proposal 46 to 42 on Friday. The referendum question will ask voters "whether they are in favour of Slovenia increasing defence spending to 3% of GDP annually in 2030, or approximately €2.1 billion". Golob's liberal Freedom Movement party voted against the initiative, while his junior coalition partners – the Social Democrats and The Left – sided with the conservative opposition to back it, deepening rifts within the ruling bloc. Discontent had been brewing since Slovenia signed up to higher NATO defence spending commitments at the NATO summit in The Hague on 24 June, which envisage members raising military expenditure to as much as 5% of GDP by 2035. Slovenia is among the few countries that failed to meet NATO's previous 2% GDP spending target in 2024, although Ljubljana stated it aimed to hit it by the end of 2025. Golob said his counter-referendum idea was intended to "dispel any doubt as to the true will of the people.' Although consultative referenda in Slovenia are not legally binding, the opposition, led by conservative SDS chief Janez Janša, has called on Golob to link a vote of confidence in the government to the outcome of the plebiscite, which Golob has dismissed. Janša, a close ally of Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and a staunch Trump supporter, is said to have ambitions to return to power in parliamentary elections scheduled for 2026. (mm)
The Guardian
10-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Slovenia to vote in referendum on artist pension that has fostered culture war
Slovenia's populist opposition has mounted a campaign against 'degenerate' artists as it seeks to topple government plans for special pension top-ups for award-winning artists in a referendum on Sunday. Voters in the central European country will cast their verdict on a government bill that details the conditions and terms under which certain artists can claim an allowance to be added to their pensions. For the referendum law to be rejected, at least one-fifth of all eligible voters among Slovenia's population of 2.12 million must vote 'no'. The number of 'no' votes must also represent more than half of all votes cast. The bill, which passed parliament in January, has been prepared by the culture ministry that is held by the leader of the eco-socialist Left party, Asta Vrečko. The government – comprised of a coalition of the Freedom Movement, Social Democrats and Left parties – says it is enacting an overdue reform of special pension provisions for persons of merit that dates back to 1974, when Slovenia was one of the republics of Yugoslavia, by tying them to stricter criteria rather than leaving them at the mercy of the personal tastes of whichever politician holds the culture ministry. Leading in the polls a year before national elections, however, the conservative Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS) has found in the relatively technical tweak to a 50-year-old law a rich seam for a culture war against perceived cultural elites. The referendum was initiated by the party, which is led by Janez Janša, a former prime minister. Janša, an admirer of Donald Trump who has led the SDS since 1993, said in March that classical art was 'being replaced by all sorts of degenerate, unhinged models that claim to be 'modern'' – his choice of the adjective izrojen echoing the term used by the German Nazi party to denounce modern art, entartete or 'degenerate'. Posters and billboards hung across Slovenian towns across the country since February have featured an image of the Slovenian artist Maja Smrekar breastfeeding a dog, alongside the slogan: 'Change for the people, prestige for the elite.' Smrekar, 47, said the image is being used without her permission and wrenches out of context a single picture from a larger project, called K-9 Topology, which explores the bonds between humans and canines. 'Ever since the four weeks of signature collection for the referendum, I have received numerous threats and highly offensive messages via various communication channels,' she told the Guardian. 'When politics decides what is art and what isn't, that's when democracy breaks down.' Over the course of a four-month residency at Berlin's Freies Museum in 2015-2016, the Brežice-born artist underwent psycho-endocrinological training to induce lactation and breastfed a sheepdog puppy, as 'a form of interspecies solidarity and care'. In 2017, Smrekar's K-9 Topology won the Golden Nica trophy at Austria's Prix Ars Electronica, one of the world's oldest media art competitions, followed by Slovenia's prestigious Prešeren Foundation award in 2018. Under the new criteria proposed by the government, the combination of these awards would entitle Smrekar to a pension top-up equalling 50% of the difference between her existing pension and the highest one calculated from the pension base for 40 years of service. Janša's SDS, which has governed Slovenia for almost nine of the last 20 years and handed out seven 'special pensions' for cultural merit in 2022, says the proposed new rules would lead to an increasing share of public funds being allocated to 'privileged' individuals, including those 'who have contributed very little, if anything, to the pension fund'. An SDS spokesperson said: 'Meanwhile, more than half of all pensioners live below the poverty line.' Sign up to This is Europe The most pressing stories and debates for Europeans – from identity to economics to the environment after newsletter promotion The divisive referendum campaign is taking place against the backdrop of a broader pension reform embarked on by the government of Robert Golob, the prime minister, at the urging of the European Commission, which will lead to a rise in the retirement age from 60 years to 62 for those who have worked 40 years. The government says that while its bill would initially lead to a surge of special pensions for artists on a waiting list, the overall burden on taxpayers would eventually stabilise at a lower cost than under the old law. Of the 83 artists receiving special pensions for artists in Slovenia, 33 are next-of-kin who inherited it from the original recipient under the rules of original 1974 law. The revised bill would scrap the inheritance rule. Slovenia's national electoral commission has calculated the cost of the referendum on the bill could amount to about €6.6m. 'The referendum is being abused as an election campaign, and a very costly one at that', Vrečko, the culture minister, told the Guardian. Golob – who was a newcomer at the 2022 elections – has urged the voters to boycott the vote, earning stark rebukes from the opposition. At Slovenian elections in 2022, his Freedom Movement emerged as a surprise winner, bucking an electoral trend towards rightwing populist rule in central and eastern European states such as Hungary and Serbia.
