ABSTRACT
Slovenia was the first of the former Yugoslav republics to organize multi-party elections in April 1990. This was the response of the Slovenian communist elite to the rise of critical civic voices, some of them emerging within the Slovenian League of Communists itself, and to the growing antagonisms among the communist elites of the different republics. Slovenia kept the business relations with EU countries developed already prior 1991, used the privileged relations stemming from a cooperation agreement between Yugoslavia and the European Community until it signed a new one and started strategically reorienting its trade from the Yugoslav to the European markets. Slovenia is considered to have led "prudent fiscal policies", however, the new fiscal obligations coming from EU membership called for better management of public finances. Slovenia overcame the economic crisis associated with the collapse of Yugoslavia relatively quickly.
