ABSTRACT
Slovenian foreign policy underwent significant adaptations in the decade before signing the Accession Treaty in April 2003, and since EU membership on 1 May 2004. This chapter analyses this top-down Europeanization as well as the contributions made by Slovenia (bottom-up Europeanization) in the development of European foreign policies (CFSP, ESDP, external relations) and defining the EU’s policies towards the Western Balkans, Russia, China and the Middle East. As a small and new state (having declared independence from the former Yugoslavia on 25 June 1991), Slovenia had barely established itself as an actor in international relations when the pursuit of the cardinal goal of joining the EU began to penetrate its foreign policy. On numerous issues, especially those beyond Slovenia’s immediate concerns, the Europeanization of its foreign policy was not even so much about adaptation, as it was about formulation. Almost from scratch, Slovenia had to build and retain its own identity in the international community and establish itself in several foreign policy relations – beyond its immediate foreign and security concerns as one of the breakaway states of ex-Yugoslavia. This chapter argues that the EU (especially Slovenia’s Presidency of the Council of the EU in the first half of 2008, which kick-started Slovenia’s active participation in European foreign policy) offered a unique opportunity for Ljubljana to consolidate its own position in the international community. Slovenia is an interesting case of a small and newly independent post-socialist state with just two million people, a new EU member yet rapidly establishing a post-Balkan identity and exploiting its special foreign policy relationships to shape the European foreign policy agenda.
