In her article published yesterday in the Spiegel, Marion Kraske brands Slovenia as Europe’s not-so golden pupil. She analyses the situation in the country at the time of assuming the presidency of the European Union, noting that rampant inflation and journalists’ concerns about government censorship are causing problems in the country.

She goes on to present examples of people who’ve found ways to apply their entrepreneurial spirit very successfully in the ‘new’ environment and then describes some of the current hot issues in the country. I found her conclusion to be an interesting closing of an article on Slovenia in one of the leading German magazines:

    “Critics believe that Janez Jansa, 49, is the real problem. A former journalist who was involved in the communist youth organization in the 1980s and became an authoritarian conservative after the fall of communism, he has only one goal, says Spomenka Hribar, a respected Slovenian philosopher: “that the state should control everything.” It is because of sentiments like these that many Slovenians see the EU Council presidency as an opportunity for more democracy.”

I have not come across the abovementioned /rather naive?/ sentiment thus far and have also not heard of anyone else refer to Blaz Zgaga as “the Robin Hood of the Slovenian media community”. Things become increasingly interesting as Europe’s eye does seem to focus more on Slovenia than it did before, contrary to my personal expectations.