Foreign Policy

With Marta Kos, Slovenia currently has the EU enlargement portfolio in the European Commission and with several Balkan countries in prolonged or advanced discussions to join the European Union, Slovenia is in a key strategic position. Still, if we want the European Union to become a political actor, Foreign Policy should be a prerogative of the EU together with common defence and external border protection. With our focus on EU integration, Volt Slovenija therefore proposes:

Foreign Policy

• Define principles on foreign policy topics that Slovenia would expect from the European Union acting as our foreign policy representative and if receiving a commitment, abstain on votes in the EU Council of foreign ministers and offer the EU to take Slovenia’s seat in the UN security council to begin representing member states on international level. 

• Suggest to the EU to rename the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy into the Foreign Affairs Minister.

• Propose to smaller EU member states to combine embassy and consulate services for their citizens living abroad under an “EU embassy”.

EU Enlargement

• Define the commitments to a qualified majority vote and step-by-step enlargement process (and underlying treaty changes) as one of the areas, Slovenia expects a firm commitment from the European Commission. It would see candidate countries gain access to certain EU advantages in return for meeting certain conditions. We need to move away from having to meet all EU acquis and conditions in a single step, if we want to begin moving countries towards EU membership and into the European sphere of influence. Of course, no longer meeting conditions should also revoke the privileges gained.    

International order

• Request the EU to advocate for democracy, peaceful coexistence, the right of self-determination and upholding the international order, which no country should stand above.

• Advocate on EU level for continuous support of Ukraine and sanctions against governments that violate the above principles (including Georgia and Israel).

• Ensure our NATO commitments are met - and commit to a redefinition/transformation of NATO in case of a departing United States with objectives serving European interests first and foremost and aiming for the EU to become a geopolitical presence with limited strategical dependencies on other large geopolitical blocks.

Development aid

• Propose to the EU to be solely responsible for development aid. 70% of Slovenia’s development aid budget already goes to the EU, so we prefer to make the EU solely responsible instead of having EU and national initiatives working side by side and often in different directions. 

• Request a commitment from the EU that a defined part of EU development aid will go into the Western Balkans to help ease the transition towards EU membership.

• Request another commitment from the EU that part of the development aid will be used to create legal immigration paths and skilling programmes outside of the EU with focus on the skills and language competences required in Slovenia and the Balkans.

International Relations

• Provide the financial means and support to scale up our network of city partnerships with a special focus for smaller Slovenian towns and establishing city links across the Balkan’s EU candidate member states. We must not underestimate the impact of decentralised cooperation and citizens creating the backbone of the cross-border links that will eventually ease and accelerate the transition towards becoming EU member states.

• Propose to Croatia to cooperate more closely on various topics (defence procurement, support with immigration efforts) in return for acknowledging the arbitration ruling on the Slovenian-Croatian border dispute.

(version 2025-02)