Newsletter - March 2025

Welcome to our monthly Volt Slovenia newsletter (subscribe here)

What a month. Four weeks ago, the world still seemed in relative order. Then the US broke the transatlantic partnership, sided with Russia in the UN Security Council and sent European member states scrambling for how to make Europe more than a Union in name only. A lot to digest. Let’s start on local level.

Topics:

What’s happening in Volt Slovenia?

• February Meet&Greet

• Volt Slovenia on the road

• Our political priorities #2

News from Europe

• New German chancellor vows to strength Europe

• Change of direction in Austria

• The US votes with Russia in the UN Security Council

News from other chapters

• Volt Germany falls short of expectations

• Volt Europe petition for a European army

• Volt Portugal completes first citizen training

• Volt Luxembourg launches Voltemon

💡 Minis discover Europe

What's happening in Volt Slovenia

February Meet&Greet

We had our first Ljubljana meeting this year and were happy to see old and new faces as we’re slowly growing larger than our table at Sax Bar. We discussed next steps for founding Volt Slovenia - we will hopefully soon start our signature collection and organise a retreat to develop our plan for the 2026 elections. 

There is a lot happening and a lot to do when starting a party from scratch. Come along for the ride and help us create fa fresh political alternative in Slovenia with a European perspective: 👉 Become a member

Volt Slovenia on the road

Speaking of and although we’re not officially a Volt chapter yet, we were happy to already be invited to join the General Assembly of Volt Poland. Sven was on his way to France anyway, so he night-trained to meet with Volt Austria in Vienna and then join the Polish team in Warsaw for their General Assembly. Volt Poland is also trying to register as a political party, so the respective sizes of our countries aside, we already coordinate and share tips and resources. 

Volt Slovenija’s initial political priorities

Last month we introduced our first political priority for Slovenia: European integration. The last month showed how important it is to reform the European Union. Else, Macron will continue to invite big member states who decide the future of Europe without smaller countries like Slovenia having a say.

👉 Read our statement

This month we present our second priority which we base our political programme on:

Decentralisation

Slovenia is one of the most centralised countries in Europe. Many regions lack economic development while everything happens in Ljubljana. This is not sustainable. Prices for apartments are as high as in Paris, pollution is becoming a health risk and the city center is overrun by tourists. We need more balance.

Volt Slovenia would therefore like to significantly upgrade our railway network to connect the country. We want to establish regions for example directly responsible for collecting EU funding. We want to develop economic clusters and use tourism to drive growth in all corners of Slovenia. There are a lot of opportunities and we should stop wasting our potential by focusing only on Ljubljana.

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

What’s happening in Europe

New German chancellor vows to strengthen Europe

Germany has taken to the polls and with the largest share going to the conservative CDU/CSU, Friedrich Merz is set to become new chancellor in a likely coalition with the social-democratic SPD. Merz wasted no time stressing that Europe needs to become independent from the United States while also keeping the extreme right at bay.

👉 Read more on his challenges here.

Back to the start: Austria with a democratic coalition 

Europe held its breath last month, as Austria was heading for a coalition led by the extreme-right FPÖ and conservative ÖVP. However, negotiations failed and in a second attempt, the social democratic SPÖ, the conservative ÖVP and the liberal NEOS concluded a coalition. They will have their work cut out for them with the country in dire need of reforms and the extreme-right in the wings continuing to pressure-cook Austrian democracy.

Three years war in Ukraine

It’s now been more than 3 years since Russia invaded Ukraine. Last month saw the United States voting with Russia for the first time in the UN General Assembly against a resolution condemning Russian aggression and calling for peace. In the Security Council, the US tabled a resolution that portrays Russia as neutral and with the European members UK, France, Denmark, Greece and Slovenia not able to amend the resolution or France and the UK breaking their pledge to not use the veto since 1989, the resolution passed. 

News from other Volt chapters

Volt Germany falls short of expectations

Although Volt doubled its score to 0.8% and qualified for political party financing, the result in the parliament election is disappointing after the 2.6% in last year’s European elections. We could see how the 5% threshold and “strategic vote” kept many from voting Volt (https://www.zeit.de/2025/09/wahl-unentschlossenheit-stimmen-strategie). As a young party, we also still lack the resources and political savvy of established parties. Volt Germany and other chapters will take many lessons out of this campaign and “we’ll be back” stronger next time!

Volt Europa’s petition for a European army

After the Munich Security Conference, Volt Europa launched a petition across the continent calling on member states to create a European Army including appointing an EU Minister of Defense, abolishing the veto for military decisions as well as fully integrating our armed forces and developing interoperable equipment (imagine 1 tank instead of 27). 

We will have to rethink security on the continent, also as Slovenia, and we should not spend years doing so.

👉 You can sign the petition here: https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/eu-member-states-protect-us-with-a-european-army 

Volt Portugal completes 1st active citizen training

Volt Portugal ran their first active citizen training. A first cohort of 20 applicants did a 4 weeks course on how to become politically active on the municipal level. The course teaches how municipalities work in Portugal, which possibilities exist for citizens to get involved including practical exercises. The training is intended to get more citizens involved in local politics and will be repeated by Volt teams in other countries.

Volt Luxembourg launches Voltemon

On a lighter side, the team from Volt Luxembourg created a custom Voltemon card set, which they launched at their recent General Assembly. For now, cards are only given out to members joining in Luxembourg, but there is considerable commotion across other chapters to also make them available elsewhere.

Minis discover Europe

Follow the adventures of Hedge and the Professor as they explore the European Institutions - our monthly comic by Izar Lunaček

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