First, we create the hunter, then we will kill the bear.

"It's now or never."

Slovenia and the European Union are at a crossroads. One path leads to historical obscurity, the other may awaken the sleeping giant within us. Our prosperity, our peace, our liberty, and democracy depend on the decisions we make today.

In the coming months, we will mainly be fighting against ourselves. Our greatest weakness will not be a lack of people, innovation, or natural resources—although we recklessly and cheaply surrender much of that to others—but rather a lack of political courage for change.

The birds on the wires are chirping about what needs to be done. We must increase the military budget, empower our DOGE, limit public spending, remove socialists and their "woke" NGO political commissars from positions of influence, stop mass migration, abandon harmful energy and spatial (radical green!) policies, and establish a united front against Putin’s Russia.

Without whining, we must accept the justified criticism of our former allies, while at the same time rejecting a dysfunctional "peace" plan that would foolishly expose our best military units and equipment in Ukraine without the protection of NATO’s Article 5. This plan would carve up and loot Ukraine, preventing it from developing its own defense capabilities and rebuilding itself. Moreover, it would impose elections to remove the disobedient Zelensky and delegitimize Ukraine’s government in territories occupied by Putin’s Russia, where people would not be voting.

If this is a peace plan, then it is better to have war with Russia now—when they are exhausted and we are unprepared—rather than in five years when they have rebuilt their army and their economy has recovered, while we, in the meantime, have not prepared for war but have been dreaming of peace.

Slovenia cannot be the first to cast stones, for we share in the sins. Since joining the EU, we have abandoned our own visions and become a kind of microcosm of Brussels. Because we have obediently accepted every foolish decision from there, we must now reform together with them. Our first goal must be to remove the socialist regime of Robert Golob, and instead of bringing in yet another new popularity-seekers, we must bring reformers to power.

And then, step by step, together- first, we create the hunter, and then we kill the bear.

Slovenia Intelligence Report, Februar 16th 2025

The multipolar world that is coming brings significant changes. What seemed like science fiction yesterday will be reality tomorrow.

The immediate, short-term consequences in the region will be that Kosovo will almost certainly be reintegrated into Serbia, as no one has an interest in defending it. In the medium term, Slovenia will fall into one of the spheres of influence and lose its political independence. If it ends up in the wrong sphere, this will also mean the end of democracy.

This is why next year's elections will be critical. If the socialist scenario from the previous elections repeats itself, it will be disastrous for our nation. In the times ahead, the country cannot be led by influencers nor can the Ministry of Defense be run by a real estate dealer (or a civilian, as has been the tradition so far). Instead, it must be led by the most experienced soldier in the country. Developing nuclear weapons might still seem crazy—but in reality, this is already a topic of secret discussions at the highest levels of several mid-sized European nations.

To those who still do not understand why the European leadership is so concerned- these changes are not just a passing trend caused by Trump but a long-term shift that Trump only accelerated. This trend—already two decades old—is American isolationism."America First" is an ideological victory for the Russian model of a multipolar world. It means that the U.S. will now focus on its primary interests—its own continent (Canada), its immediate surroundings (Greenland), and the Pacific—while leaving Europe to fend for itself. And when the world divides into three or four spheres of influence, if we persist in our current approach, we will be absorbed into one of them—or worse, into two— instead of establishing our own.

This leads to the most far-reaching transformation. The entire European welfare model is built on U.S. security guarantees. When the U.S. relocates its military capabilities away from Europe, we will be defenseless, vulnerable, and blind. And whoever we turn to for protection will provide it at a much lower quality and a much higher cost. No one will pamper us anymore, and defense spending will no longer be diverted into social programs. This means a radical reform of the European welfare state—or, in other words, the death of the European welfare model as we know it.

Slovenia Intelligence Report, April 26th 2022

The victor of the 2022 elections is the Svoboda party. This newly formed party is trying to position itself as liberal. Still, because its corpus is predominately socialist and it owes its success to left-wing media and far-left NGOs, it is not likely to support liberal causes.

It will probably be another serial ALDE in name only member from Slovenia, populated by anti-market demagogues from trade unions, state-financed NGOs and the public sector.

Without insight into the last three elections, this unusual Slovenian political situation is hard to understand. Each time the same informal group of influential people established an entirely new political party weeks before the elections. In 2011 the winner was Mr Zoran Jankovic with a new party called Positive Slovenia. In 2014 the winner was Mr Miro Cerar, with a new party named the Party of Miro Cerar. In 2018 the projected winner was Mr Marjan Sarec with a new Party called the Party of Marjan Sarec. He lost at the finish line but still formed a minority government. Finally, in 2022, Mr Robert Golob, with a new party Svoboda, won the elections for the fourth time.

All four newly conjured parties were anti-market, interventionist, pro-Russian, and deeply socialist. However, they insisted on joining ALDE. They have established a network inside this group and avoid the ALDE due diligence process by "passing the doorknob". 

And they always form a coalition government with the PES parties. Hence by forming new ALDE-PES governments every time they portray the Theresienstadt of political normality to the European Union public.

But a bit less ordinary, knowing that the same left-wing coalitions have governed Slovenia 70 out of the past 77 years.

The Svoboda party's first and most important priority is to take over the public broadcaster and eliminate any criticism and difference of opinions. Svoboda inherited an informal alliance with Slovenia's two largest private media networks: the ProPlus Pop TV and the media empire of oligarch Martin Odlazek, from previous parties, created in the same manner.

Svoboda already controls a much larger share of the media market than, for example, Victor Orban in Hungary or Aleksandar Vučić in Serbia. But,  unlike in the first two cases, due to informal nature of their media control and lobbying by PES and ALDE/Renew, this media concentration is not considered problematic.

They will likely replace the seventeen years old laws regulating public broadcasting to be able to change its leadership and nominate its candidates. They will hide their intentions by choosing from a group of carefully selected politically controlled and state-sponsored NGOs.

The second priority will be the payback package for their supporters. They will roll back laws from the previous mandate that were an attempt to deregulate the economy. For example, a former Yandex manager and, interestingly enough, the president of the taxi driver union with close connections to Serbia and Russia organised a free taxi service for their voters on election day. And in return, the Svoboda party will roll back regulations and ban UBER in Slovenia.

The third and last short term priority will be to amend the Recovery Plan for Europe to channel EU funds away from current programs and to Svoboda supporters.

As a mildly pro-Russian party, they will try to bow out of support for Ukraine, abandon the plan to send M-84 tanks, seek allies to soften the sanctions, and promote the dialogue with Moscow. But as their primary short term focus is to amend the Recovery Plan for Europe, they can realistically be pressured into compromises.