Newsletter - August 2025
Our monthly newsletter with news from Volt Slovenia, across Europe and our web comic.
Welcome to our monthly Volt Slovenia newsletter (subscribe here)
The "silly season" has long since arrived, but Volt continues its activities despite members being in more “exotic” locations than Slovenia and in a more relaxed mood.
We are of course still collecting signatures to launch our party, growing our membership, fine-tuning our programme, and responding to current topics in European and national politics. And when we catch a shooting star in the summer night sky, we wish for far-reaching and constructive European projects—rather than lukewarm reactions to the latest moves by a carrot-colored Caligula.
If you’d like to help turn our wishes into action, you can support us by signing to help us launch Volt Slovenia - or get to know us first at our monthly meetup on Wednesday, August 13 at 6 PM at Sax Pub in Ljubljana or Sunday, August 17 at 10 AM at Kavarna Kapitanija in Koper.
Thank you for your support!
Topics:
What’s happening in Volt Slovenia?
Monthly Meetup in Ljubljana and Koper
Signature Collection #3
Strengthening our social media presence
News from Europe
EU-US Trade Agreement
Proposal for new EU budget
News from other chapters
Volt protests against border controls across Europe
Volt Austria Assembly with greetings from Slovenia
Volt Europa’s General Assembly in Frankfurt might need a bigger venue
💡 Minis discover Europe
What's happening in Volt Slovenia
Monthly Meetup in Ljubljana and Koper
First Volt Meet&Greet in Koper
Before the summer break we organised two monthly meetings: our regular event in Ljubljana and a first Meet&Greet in Koper. With fresh energy back from summer vacation, we will continue with two events in August:
On Wednesday, August 13 at 6 PM, join us on the terrace of Sax Pub in Ljubljana - more info here
On Sunday, August 17 at 10am, join us on the beachfront of Kavarna Kapitanija in Koper - more info here
Everyone who’d like to chat casually about European and local politics is welcome. Of course, we’ll also talk about bold plans and what we can do to make a difference.Signatures - update #2
Signature Collection #3
The pile of signatures is growing, but we could definitely use a boost - hopefully with your help!
If you’d like to help, you can certify your signature at the administrative office in just 5 minutes and send it to us. If you’re in Ljubljana - let us know! We’ll gladly invite you for a coffee (or something stronger 😉)
👉 How can you sign?
We’ve prepared clear and simple IKEA-style instructions for everyone.
Photo: How to sign. Ikea-style
👉 What does it mean to sign to found a party?
You will be able to vote for the initial party leadership and adopt our Statutes and Programme on the inaugural General Assembly.
After registration, we ask everyone to become an ordinary member by signing up on Volt.team - you don’t have to, so if you do not want to, you will have only helped us register the party Volt Slovenija with your signature. It is perfectly okay if you don’t want to go further.
👉 You can find more information and an FAQ on our signature website
Strengthening our Social Media Presence
We strive to make our ideas for a more constructive and forward-looking politics heard more widely. So that the media landscape isn’t flooded only with forces of disintegration, but also with those working to build both international and local institutions for everyone’s benefit.
It might sound mundane after such a lofty intro, but you can help a lot by following Volt Slovenia on social media. With your support, we’ll soon reach 1,000 followers on Instagram.
News from Europe
EU–US Trade Agreement
Photo: U.S. Trade Representative (Instagram) - no thumbs from EU negotiators!
Given the destructive goals of the U.S. administration and chaotic implementation, there’s little hope of anything good coming from a trade agreement under current circumstances.
This deal can be seen as an attempt to limit damage to the economy, but it’s still weak and short-sighted. With such deals, the EU turns its back on the international institutions and fair trade principles we've helped build over decades.
Instead of damage control, the EU should start building a new global system of free trade with willing partners.
More U.S. imports of energy or military equipment won’t help either. Even if we know these transitions can’t happen overnight, the EU must commit to strategic autonomy:
Independent defense forces with their own industrial base
Buying U.S. equipment only when European alternatives are unavailable
Diversifying energy sources and accelerating the switch to renewables
Finally, we need a European Commission leadership with a clear democratic mandate from EU Parliament elections (Spitzenkandidaten), not one that constantly caves to the interests of a few large member states.
👉 Read more about the EU-US deal
👉 Read our own joint statement of Volt Central and Eastern European chapters on the EU-US deal
New EU Budget 2028-2035 Proposal
The new EU budget is up for discussion (photo: Euractiv)
Last month, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen also presented the draft of the future EU Budget (MFF or Multiannual Financial Framework) which will be negotiated with the EU Council and Parliament for the next two years.
If you deduct 165B€ for Covid debt repayments, the proposed budget is only slightly larger as the last 7 years budget with 1.82T€ or 1.15% of GNI (compared to 23% federal spending in the US).
The plan also foresees wide-ranging reorganisations of the budget including a 30% spending cut for agriculture towards competitiveness, but also a reorganisation of regional cohesion plans. This would foresee the Commission dealing directly with governments without the European Parliament having its usual role to validate and control budgets would not be misspent. Worse, the draft also foreseen regional cohesion funds to be centrally handled by governments compared to regions currently in charge.
In Slovenia we can already see the negative effects of such budget reallocation changes: since Slovenia has no official regions, all cohesion funds go through Ljubljana. If they are based on the development index in Ljubljana, compared to say Murska Sobota, we would receive less budget for regional development and companies would have to work with lower funding rates in many EU programmes. Something to think about when discussing why we should or should not have regions in Slovenia.
👉 Read more about the proposed EU budget
News from other Volt chapters
Volt protests against border controls across Europe
Photo: March for open borders (Volt Luxembourg)
Since May 9th, the German government has installed internal border controls to stop illegal immigrants entering Germany from other EU member states. The Schengen agreement only allows this in national emergencies, yet the German government refuses to stop controls.
Aside from the terrible results - 400 000 hours of extra work for law enforcement to detect 350 illegal border crossings. At an estimated 30€/h, the German government spends 34.285€ of taxpayer money for every illegal entrant on rail and highway border crossings.
Volt Germany therefore called for a march for open borders and organised crossborder protests with participants from the Volt along the borders with Switzerland, France, Luxembourg, Belgium, Netherlands, Denmark, Poland, Czechia and Austria.
👉 There were many reports in the news in all countries, such as this one (in German, 2m 28)
Volt Austria’s Assembly with Greetings from Slovenia
Volt Slovenia on the Volt Austria General Assembly in Salzburg
Our neighbouring chapter Volt Austria held its annual General Assembly to elect a new Board, adjust statutes and discuss the strategy for the upcoming years.
We were happy to have our Sven Franck participate for Volt Slovenija together with other invited members from Volt Germany and Volt Switzerland. We hope that all chapters will return the favor and also have representatives join for our inaugural general assembly of Volt Slovenia. Our strength is being a paneuropean movement and exchanging across borders and supporting each other.
Volt Europa General Assembly Might Need a Bigger Venue
The big annual General Assembly of Volt Europa will take place in Frankfurt am Main on November 22–23, bringing together all national and regional Volt organisations to set future goals, share best practices, and more.
The unofficial part will last a bit longer, and local bars will contribute to member cohesion too.
Preparations are on track - 65% of available tickets are already sold. Given the high demand (and expected boost after the holidays), organisers are already wondering whether a bigger venue will be needed.
👉 If you're interested in attending, now’s the time to book your tickets
👉 If you want to actively contribute and join our Slovenian delegation in Frankfurt, register as a member here
Minis discover Europe
As usual, we finish with the adventures of Hedge and the Professor as they explore the European Institutions - our monthly comic by Izar Lunaček. You can find the previous episodes on our website.
Thank you for reading, please recommend our newsletter to friends that might be interested in Volt and see you again in a month.
The team
from Volt Slovenia