Cracks Appear in Slovenia's Model Facade

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But Ljubljana's cheerful image is deceptive. In fact, the city has seen better days, and since the introduction of the euro in early 2007, prices have been climbing steadily. The average price of food products alone jumped by 20 percent over the course of the year.

"It's really hard to make ends meet," says Ingrid Dorner, a 21-year-old who wears nickel glasses and has her hair dyed bright red. She comes from Maribor, Slovenia's second-largest city, and is a psychology student in Ljubljana. Dorner says that she earns about €800 working in a restaurant, and spends €300 of her earnings on rent alone. "The money practically runs straight through your fingers," she says.

High Inflation Mars Image of Model Pupil

The Slovenians began expressing their frustrations in late November, when around 70,000 people took to the streets in Ljubljana -- a massive demonstration for such a small country. In what was the largest rally since the Slovenians proclaimed their independence, trade unions, students and pensioners protested against the rising cost of living and demanded more social justice.

Slovenia's inflation rate of 5.7 percent -- the highest in the euro zone -- does give rise for concern. In early November, EU Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Policy Joaquín Almunia even felt the need to issue a public warning to Slovenia, a model economy until then. An inflation rate higher than 3 percent, Almunia said, sends "a bad signal" to the countries next in line for Euro-zone membership.

The condition of the center-right government of Prime Minister Janez Jansa is not exactly rosy as the country enters its EU Council presidency. Danilo Türk, a leftist politician and experienced diplomat who was former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan's right-hand man for six years, won the recent presidential election, while Lojze Peterle, the administration's favorite, finished a disappointing second. "The election outcome is a warning for Jansa's cabinet," says Vedran Dzihic, a Vienna-based expert on the Balkans. "The country is losing its image of the model pupil."

Jansa's decision to propose a confidence vote in late November was more for show than anything else, with the National Assembly voting in his favor, as expected. Nevertheless, the prime minister has his share of problems on the domestic political front. Five hundred and seventy-one journalists recently launched a petition criticizing what they see as massive restrictions on freedom of the press and excessive political pressure from the government. A letter outlining their grievances was sent to many newspapers and press agencies throughout Europe in the autumn.

While Jansa seeks to paint the petition as a campaign stage-managed by the opposition and even accuses the rebellious journalists of treason, many consider the protests justified. Blaz Zgaga is one of them.

The 34-year-old journalist, one of the two initiators of the petition, is currently seen as the Robin Hood of the Slovenian media community. Zgaga sits in front of his favorite bar in downtown Ljubljana, wearing a heavy woolen cap and a padded jacket. He says that he spent years writing about the activities and scandals of Slovenia's intelligence agencies in the newspaperVecer, but that last year the paper began removing passages critical of the government. He was eventually reassigned to write about less sensitive issues. Nowadays, he says, it is all but impossible for him to pursue investigative journalism. "They put me on ice."

More Democracy with EU Presidency?

Zgaga's is not an isolated case, says Brankica Petkovic, who monitors the media community for the Slovenian Peace Institute. Recently, she says, critical journalists have repeatedly been demoted, unwelcome articles have been suppressed and senior editors in print and radio have been replaced by pro-government journalists. "Pressure is being exerted on the press in a very subtle way," says Petkovic.

Within the last two years, says Grega Repovz, the editor-in-chief of Mladina, a news magazine, state-controlled companies like Telekom and Mobitel have taken to canceling their advertising without explanation. His publication has posted losses of several hundred thousand euros in the past year alone, which, according to Repovz, is a clear punishment for his critical reporting. Repovz, who is also the chairman of the Slovenian journalists' association, is convinced that the "intervention has never been this bad."

Critics believe that Janez Jansa, 49, is the real problem. A former journalist who was involved in the communist youth organization in the 1980s and became an authoritarian conservative after the fall of communism, he has only one goal, says Spomenka Hribar, a respected Slovenian philosopher: "that the state should control everything." It is because of sentiments like these that many Slovenians see the EU Council presidency as an opportunity for more democracy.

Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan

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