Newsletter - February 2025

Welcome to our monthly Volt Slovenia newsletter (subscribe here)

A lot has happened in January. Here is our monthly recap and outlook going into February.

Topics:

What’s happening in Volt Slovenia?

• Our team is growing!

• Launching our new website

• Our political priorities

News from Europe

• Poland championing Europe

• Austria falling to the extreme-right

• Slovakia stands up for Europe

News from other chapters

• Volt MEP gets the Commission to act

• Volt Germany on tour

• Volt Portugal running for president

💡 Minis discover Europe

What's happening in Volt Slovenia

Our team is growing!

We’re happy to announce our newest and youngest Volter: Our to-be founding member Nico became a father in January. We wish him and his wife all the best and hope the purple spirit will also run strong with young Ema.

It is never to early to join 👉 Become a member

Launching our new website

Our new website is finally online at www.voltslovenije.org - thanks to the perseverance of Borja! We're excited to now have a site where you can find not only this newsletter, but also information on upcoming events, our programme (much to come) and our preparations to register as a political party.  

If you want to help us to become known in Slovenia, you now have a website to share and a newsletter signup. Do make good use of it.

Volt Slovenija’s initial political priorities

We have also spent a lot of time on the first version of our national programme, which we need to submit with our party registration. We want Volt Slovenia to be known for 3 priorities: Growth through European integration and decentralisation and building trustworthy politics. Each month we will present one priority:

European Integration

With the United States turning their back on the world, it is time for Europe to grow up. We need the EU to become a geopolitical presence. 

This means for example replacing the unanimity clause with qualified majorities so that the EU is no longer hostage to internal blockades and giving the European Parliament the right to propose laws - it is the only parliament in the world which cannot propose anything.

On a national level, we want to benefit from integration - for example by attracting high quality EU workers with first class public services, by educating for a European job market and by joint military procurement to make EU Defense grants available to our companies.

👉 If you are interested to learn more, our full programme will soon be available online in our programme section.

What’s happening in Europe

Poland is championing Europe

(Copyright: European Union 2023/EP, Pietro Naj-Oleari)

Poland has taken over the rotating EU Council presidency and is now setting the political agenda of the Council of Ministers until July. You can learn more about the priorities of Poland on their Council presidency site.

We are also happy to see Polish President Tusk setting exclamation marks for European unity: There is no need for Europe to become great, it has always been. Strong words which will hopefully be followed by national governments making the necessary contributions for the European Union to step out of member states' shadows and to protect our economy, but also our European way of life and culture 💜.

Austria falling to the extreme-right

In Austria, the liberals and social democrats abandoned coalition talks with the conservative ÖVP who, against their election promise, is now seeking a coalition as junior partner of the right-wing FPÖ. It will be the first time since the second world war that Austria will have an extreme-right chancellor.

We cross our fingers that Austrian institutions and civil society can withstand the incoming government and that existing democratic parties, including Volt Austria, provide answers to the population that sees Austria’s role in Europe.

👉 Read more about Volt Austria’s reaction.

Slovakia stands up for Europe

(Bratislava protests, Credit: Juraj Rizman)

People took to the streets in Slovakia at the end of January protesting against the government's ambition to align closer with Russia. Over 100 000 participants across the country made this one of the largest protests in Slovakia’s history. The “Slovakia is Europe” initiative and other NGOs organised the protests after prime minister Fico’s allegations of foreign interference to overthrow the government and wanting to leave the door open to exit the European Union.

👉 Read more about the protests here.

News from other Volt chapters

Volt MEP get the Commission to act 

(Photo: P-177465E Photographer: Laurie DIEFFEMBACQ)

Social media has been in turmoil for some time now and after the recent support of Elon Musk of the German far-right on X, our MEP Damian Boeselager questioned Henna Virkkunen, the EU Vice President for tech sovereignty, security and democracy, why Europe was not following its own laws of the Digital Services Act to prevent such actions.

The Commission replied and acted. With a slap on the wrist only it seems, so we need to continue to be vigilant.

👉 Read about Damian’s letter and about the EU Commission's response to social media platforms abusing their power. 

Volt Germany on tour

(Maral in Warsaw, photo: Volt Germany)

The German elections are getting closer and Volt Germany’s lead candidate Maral Koohestanian went on the road across Europe to discover what other countries are doing well. From ending homelessness in Helsinki to public services accessible within 15 minutes in Paris - there are a lot of best practices we can learn from and which Volt would like to bring into the German Parliament.

👉 Follow Maral on her journey on Youtube. 

Volt Portugal’s Manuela Magno runs for president

Volt has been around for some time now, but we have never participated in a presidential election. Until now! Volt Portugal’s Manuela Magno will try to become the first Volt candidate to run for head of state in Portugal in 2026. Candidates need to run on a neutral platform and she will have to collect 7500 signatures to be on the ballot, which we cross our fingers for our Portuguese team to collect.

👉 See Manuela’s website here: https://manuelamagno.pt/ 

Minis discover Europe

To finish, we are launching a comic to explain the European Union. It is designed by Slovenian artist Izar Lunaček and made possible by Sven with the help from the Dutch Volt There Foundation. The two protagonists are Hedge and the Professor, called the “Minis”. In our strip, Hedge has just been elected to the European Parliament and now they discover the European Institutions.

Enjoy Yonkoma-style!

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