The Strength of Pro-European Consensus Among Slovenian Political Elites

Abstract

In this article, the authors analyse attitudes of Slovenian political elites towards EU and the process of European integration on general in the period of crisis. Namely, during the EU accession period, there was a strong consensus among political elites and in general public on desirability of country's integration into European institutional framework. However, the 2008 crisis that strongly affected Slovenian economy and society brought the rise of negative attitudes towards EU and other Western supra-national political entities. The main thesis is that the Europeanness of Slovenian political elites is rather ambivalent since its attitudes are diverging and often inconsistent.