Slovenia 20 Years after EU Accession: Still Good Pupil or Troubled Teenager?

• In Event: Central and Eastern Europe Twenty Years after EU Enlargement

Abstract

The paper aims to analyse the period from 2004, when Slovenia along with seven other Central and Eastern European states (plus Cyprus and Malta) entered the European Union, to the present day, two decades after the accession to the European Union. The Eastern enlargement of 2004 was the largest single enlargement in terms of people, and number of countries, though not in terms of GDP. The less developed nature of these countries was of concern to some of the older member states. The official EU statements frequently referred to the enlargement to the Central and Eastern European region as "an historical opportunity" and "morally imperative", which reflected the desire of the EU to admit these countries as members, even though they were less developed than the older member states. The paper will put an emphasis on the Slovenia and will try to find answer to the question of how the attitudes towards European Union have potentially changed since 2004 and which are the political and/or policy areas where Slovenia benefited most from the 2004 enlargement and where the progress was less than expected and left something to be desired.

Authors

• Miro Hacek, University of Ljubljana

• Simona Kukovic, School of Advanced Social Studies