The Slovenian State Secretary within the Ministry for Economy, Eva Štravs Podlogar, has met with representatives of Germany’s Lufthansa in Frankfurt to “analyse the aviation market in the wake of Adria Airways’ bankruptcy”. Ms Štravs Podlogar was accompanied by both the CEO and the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Slovenia’s Bank Assets Management Company. The ministry said it was examining legal and organisational alternatives that would help fill the void created by Adria's demise, noting that talks with various stakeholders were under way. It added that any potential decision concerning the creation of a new flag carrier would have to take into account Lufthansa’s plans for the Slovenian market.
The Minister for Economic Development and Technology, Zdravko Počivalšek, is believed to have proposed the creation of a new national airline which would launch towards the end of February 2020 with a fleet of ten to twelve aircraft. Mr Počivalšek previously said any new flag carrier should be established only in partnership with Lufthansa. Former Adria Airways employees, who were tasked with looking into rescue initiatives for the airline, have said a foreign carrier has plans to set up a new company at Ljubljana Airport. On the other hand, the Slovenian Prime Minister, Marjan Šarec, has said that establishing a new state-owned airline would be “too risky”, but stopped short of dismissing the idea all together. “Launching such a project without providing incentives to the company for a period of at least three years would be too risky and meaningless”, the Prime Minister said.
Adria Airways' receiver has invited interested parties to bid for assets of the collapsed airline. The formal tender states that the bankruptcy administrator, Janez Pustatičnik, is offering the entirety, or part, of Adria Airways for sale. It says that participants in the process must submit their offers no later than November 10, and bidders will be informed of the outcome within fifteen days of the deadline. Some of Adria’s assets include land property rights and the head office building, aircraft parts and two apartments. The airline had no aircraft in its ownership and leased its entire fleet. “With the invitation for non-binding bids I would like to check the interest of potential buyers", Mr Pustatičnik said.
Meanwhile, Slovenia's parliamentary finance committee has proposed for Adria’s sale to Germany’s 4K Invest in 2016 be formally examined. It issued a decision stating that the country's Court of Audit should investigate the sale and the contract under which the airline was sold. It added that the results of the investigation should be submitted to the National Assembly "as soon as possible". The committee has also sought to spur the Slovenian government into exploring conditions under which it could establish a new state-owned airline, with the support of former Adria employees.
I think Lufthansa has its hands full with sorting other messes in its group like Eurowings to venture into creating a new airline.
ReplyDeleteEurowings Slovenia.
ReplyDeleteWhy is Lufthansa the only acceptable partner?
ReplyDeleteMy question as well. And Slovenian PM back in April said how it was a mistake not to sell Adria to Lufthansa o.O
Deletebecause the three most important routes from LJU are to LH hubs. Doing them against LH is at least a challenge. and going only with destinations that do not fill 5 small planes a week is not easy either.
DeleteThere is no way that AF/KLM, IAG or any renowed LCC would invest here at the moment. And then there are noly small players left like LOT or AirBaltic. But why would they do it against LH?
LH has a much more flexible structure to do this, and they have the processes and small planes to do that. (getting the dashs out of their core system before may with a profit would make some people their very happy; and then there are some turquoise plane that may be freed up soon)
Good that they will probe Adria sale.
ReplyDeleteShould have proved it years ago.
Delete* probed
DeleteMaybe they can set something up like Air Dolomiti.
ReplyDeleteAir Dolomiti was not established by Lufthansa.
DeleteIt was eventually purchased by LH.
DeleteAir Julian Alp^s ^^
DeleteI love Air Dolomiti <3 great boutique airline
DeleteWould it have been easier for Lufthansa just to acquire a stake in Adria? Or for them just to base some Eurowings planes in LJU?
ReplyDeleteBase EW.
DeleteWhy would you invest 100 mio just to clear Adria's debt? Brand is worthless, aircraft were leased.
I don't think the idea is to buy Adria's brand and debt. They would set up a completely new company.
Delete@9.06 Why would Lufthansa have bought a debt ridden company?
DeleteWell their Lufthansa Italia venture didn't go so well.
ReplyDeleteYou can't compare Italian to Slovenian market.
DeleteBut still the italian market is one of their largest and most profitable.
DeleteJust check out MUC on any day of the week to confirm.
Slovenia should reach out to AF/KL group who are highly professional. They have a clear strategy. They were clever to buy Virgin and recently Europe's biggest regional airline - flybe. This airline will become Virgin Connect.
ReplyDeleteAdria Connect can be created and this way focus on LJU-CDG and CDG/ORY routes and benefit from Virgin Connect.
LH Group is just messy and currently with no limbo...
Slovenia needs connectivity primarily in Europe. It will not get this connectivity to Europe via AMS or CDG, because it means a lot of backtracking to most destinations in Europe, making it economically and otherwise inefficient.
DeleteConnectivity to America and Asia is of lesser importance because the absolutely key economic partners are in Europe and the Slovenian economy doesn't have a global reach. In addition backtracking on a longhaul is not such an issue because of the overall long distance. There will always be options.
So in fact Slovenians can only get connectivity to Europe via MUC or to a very limited extent via BEG.
LH knows this and understands that the other party has really no choice.
AF/KLM will not set up shop here, or anwhere else in the near future.
DeleteThey also just bought a minority stake Virgin Atlantic, and Virgin Atlantic is just an indirect part-owner of flybe. Check out the flybe network to see how they are connected to any AF/KLM operations.
so indeed 4K had done job for LH
ReplyDeleteHow did they help them exactly?
DeleteWhy do you expect that Germans want to help Slovens?
DeleteLjubljana has similar traffic levels as Dane Country Regional Airport (MSN) in Madison, Wisconsin. LJU can't sustain a local airline and the best solution is to try to attract LCCs to base aircraft there (like SKP has done).
ReplyDeleteI lived there in last century nice city and lakes.
DeleteSo did I! Go Badgers!!:)
DeleteNothing will happen of this. LH will realize that it is cheaper for them to simply get their group airlines to fly to LJU.
ReplyDelete+1.
DeleteThey haven't reacted very quickly. Only Swiss, Brussels and LH with Brussels and LH having a poor schedule. No Austrian, no Eurowings.
Deletenot sure, if they get paid to operate some of their excess small planes out of LJU for at least 18 months, they certainly will consider that
DeleteI'm still intrigued by this airline that want's to establish a company in Slovenia. I would assume it probably isn't LH if these talks are taking place only now?
ReplyDeleteSad if Adria was sacrifised for Lufthansa?
ReplyDeleteHow exactly was Adria sacrificed for Lufthansa?? Please spare me a story how LH had a 5 year plan to destroy Adria through 4K, an airline they worked with closely, so they could take over one of Europe's smallest markets.
Deletedont feed the trolls
Delete5 years ago, somewhere in Bavaria:
DeleteSir, I have a cunning plan!
(c) by BlackAdder
:)
LJU-MUC,FRA,ZRH, BRU
ReplyDeletePRN-FRA
SKP-FRA
i dont know what else they could fly for LH. there will be no p2p route that LH is gonna co-finance. 2-3 Embraers aircrafts could do these and thats it
A new national airline is not needed.
ReplyDeleteJust wait to see those passenger numbers at LJU in October and you will see why a national airline is needed.
DeleteEven including new routes from LH group and other additions it will be -40% every month from now on for a year.
DeleteWhat is more is a drop in short-haul connectivity. Those going long-haul will, this or that way, manage to find their way and they always had to transfer. These going short-haul no longer have convenient options (to the short extent convenient options exisited in times of Adria).
yeah...the numbers... when 2/3 of your passengers were transfers who sat 1-2 hours at lju and then went onwards. totally irrelevant with respect to the neverending reasoning of connectivity and economoic/tourist interest.
Delete400k passengers that were in-out LJU .... and of course that is counted twice, so that is 200k individual people who got here and went back home or went somehere and came bac. WTF end of the world. galaxy will collapse. need natinal airline. with 5000 employees. and mimimum wage must be 25k eur.
we are on this sort of level of info and no-fact presentation.
in reality no numbers justify what the mainstream media (and also pilots' wishes) is pushing and blabbering about. I admit I have a natural allergy to the word "national interest", but hey if anyone else sees any national interest in ferrying kosovars and albanians through LJU to other destinations, it's maybe time to visit the eye-doctor's office.
Yes, Lufthansa can certainly do it, but only with Slovenian money:)
ReplyDeleteSo once again in the history of mankind privitising the gains and nationalising the losses.
PS. probably talks held just out of courtesy on the part of LH, but enough to pretend for the other party that some discussions are ongoing and there is something serious. Enough to say that the talks were in Frankfurt not in Slovenia.
Slovenia is a small market. If Lufthansa wanted it they would have started flights there while Adria was still alive.
ReplyDeleteI don't understand the Slovenian government. They knew for a year that Adria was going down the toilet and only now they realised they should somehow react and do something? How is it possible that they are completely unprepared?
ReplyDeleteThey obviously couldn't care less. But now they are realizing it isn't such a small issue as they expected.
DeleteI have just looked at GRZ airport in compare to LJU. Todaj GRZ hass 22 take off operation compare with LJU 15. So if we added 3 more oferation in next month (2x FRA, 1x BRU) iz will be 18. It means that if will not happened something dramatically in 2020, LJU will hard have more than 1 milion passenger. We all know that Adria was airline which served exclusively to LJU elite and politicians, the same is LJU airport, it is completely unimportant, other SLO are using GRZ (MB, CE), VIE (MB, CE), TRS (KP, GO, PO), VCE (KP, GO) TSF (KP, GO) and ZAG (NM, MB, CE, LJ). LH confirmed that when he added flights to MUC and FRA wit bad timing (first flight at 10.55). If we look at LJU airport timetable first take off at 9:00. Absolutly a shame for airport of capital city. Compare to GRZ with same population, it has 4 flights to FRA (LJU 2x), 5 flights to MUC (LJU 1x) 2 flights each to DUS and STR (LJU 0), and flights already started between 6 and 7 in the morning. So LJU airport do not have good prospects for the future at all.
ReplyDelete+1 sad reality
DeleteIt is really a bad thing when your first departure of the day is at 9am and your last one at 10pm. Tough times ahead for LJU without Adria.
DeleteToday Ljubljana has 14 departures, Sarajevo 13.
DeleteOnly in a couple of months will people realise the true value of Adria. All those predicting a "Budapest scenario" are already being proven wrong.
DeleteHow come LH Group flies like crazy from Celovec and Gradec? Are this lines subsided? Because both cities are smaller than Ljubljana.
DeleteSJJ is as badly managed as LJU so no wonder they have a similar performance.
Delete@10:19 neither Klagenfurt nor Graz pays for connections to Germany or Switzerland,
DeleteGRAZ / GRADEC 288.806 (1. Jan. 2019)
DeleteLJUBLJANA 288.250 (1. Juli 2017)
MARIBOR 112.065 (1. Januar 2019)
CELOVEC 100.817 (1. Jan. 2019)
So GRZ is not smaller than LJU. It is not a capital but have much more stronger economy than LJU, which has only many representative, consulates and government institutions, cleary it is the capital (compare with Graz: Magna headquarter and factory and much more) with average income of 1.800 EUR compare to 1.231 LJU (february 2019).
So the politicians like minister of economy and some secretars form government has only after collaps of ADRIA recognized what was national carrier. They are convinced that ADRIA can not collaps, because they are amateurs without any knowlegde abot airtrafiic management (even we on this forum know more). They also think how important is LJ and airport LJ. LJ is only a capital of a small boutique country nice for carry out holidays, it is so unimportant like Bratislava (no national carrier) and consecutive is unimportant LJU airport. I just asking myself what means Lufthansa manangent when those amateurs from the government comes with so ridiculous ideas about new airline (to grow up with Lufthansa), even with ideas 10-12 aircraft. We all know that LJU airport and ADRIA served only to LJU elite and politicians, all other used GRZ, VIE; TRS, ZAG, VCE and TSF. Only in GRZ was about 100.000 passenger from area close to Austrian border (so 10%). And now those elites and politicians crying and recognizing that they are so small and unimporatnt in European Union.
What ADRIA needed in the past was 3-5 aircraft (loading factor in the past was always under 70% , usually also under 50%), which must have 4-5 rotation with LF more than 80% to make a profit. And they had 20 aircrafts, it was cleary that it will collapse in the near future with this business model. So there is no chance that Slovenia will have a national carrier in the future.
So much hate for Ljubljana, its population and "the elite" here. I wonder who you people are and what evil did Ljubljana ever do to you. Maybe you all live in Maribor ... or maybe you're just that miserable and/or arrogant.
DeleteCmon dont tell me that four flights daily Graz - Vienna and Celovec - Vienna are economicly feasible.
DeleteGraz-Vienna is often cancelled and replaced by train...
DeleteIt added that any potential decision concerning the creation of a new flag carrier would have to take into account Lufthansa’s plans for the Slovenian market.
ReplyDeleteJUST WHY??? Since Slo doesn't have a national carrier any more, it is not part of the alliance any more. Am I mistaken?
Because it is obvious they will only set up a new airline if Lufthansa is involved. That's what the minister said weeks ago as well. If Lufthansa decides it is satisfied with the current situation, the government won't set up a new airline.
DeleteAnd the parliamentary committee has rejected the government proposed changes to aviation law to provide subsidies to foreign airlines to fly to Ljubljana.
ReplyDeleteWow really? That's huge! I guess it puts that plan to rest.
DeleteLH group has a lot of issues itself. Saving smaller markets isn't their priority I would assume.
ReplyDeleteIf LH was serious about LJU, all their group airlines should already be operating double daily flights from their hubs.
ReplyDeleteLH has a fleet shortage so that's impossible. They were leasing planes from Adria!
Deletethey were not wet leasing machines because of plane shortage, they have excess small planes at the moment, and this excess will grow in the next months
Deletethe wet leasing was done because of the price, and for tactic reasons in negotiations with unions
Apperently LH already rejected, as well as Irish Cityjet did (source SLO press). Also about 6000 EUR from a cashbox at their Brnik office are missing (source SLO press)
ReplyDeleteTako nemacki.
DeleteIf Slovenia wants a new national airline it should set it up ASAP. Airlines are starting to cover routes, adding capacity and frequencies. By the time they launch, the market will already be well served and there will be no need for them.
ReplyDeleteIn fact I think the market has already moved on. No need for new airline.
DeleteThe market has already moved on, it's time the Slovenian government does the same.
DeleteYeah, market is moving on with blazing speed. Just look at all the new destinations. Get real.
DeleteI actually think the marker reacted fast enough. Airlines probably don't have planes parked in a hangar waiting to deploy them if an opportunity pops up somewhere. Fraport itself said that it expects 1.5 years for the traffic to be replaced. I think it would be reasonable to expect next summer season's schedule to be improved compared to the new flights being launched by LH group.
Deletewhat new destinations is anon 10:35 blabberig about? as if JP wanted to start any new destinations in reality (forget the spins of some Liverpool once per week). it tried - last year. and failed miserably on all but one front and made huge losses with the experiment. in reality JP would only increase the amount of ACMI business if war would not ensue from the pilots.
Deletein the JP state it would have to cut even more routes not open any new. So it's actually a greater chanse of maybe some new route with other carriers.
Despite what people claim, to me it seems Lufthansa has never really been interested in ex-Yu market. When Slovenia and then Croatia entered the EU they had the opportunity to open a base in the region and really cover it well. They didn't do it. Probably because it is low yielding.
ReplyDeleteEurowings was a perfect opportunity to do more in ex-Yu but they failed on that front. Eurowings has a lot of seasonal routes in Croatia which was pushed by route manager being Croatian but many of those routes are about to end in 2020. They don't even fly to Slovenia, they just entered Montenegrin market last year.
So I don't think they are overly interested in this region.
They treat it as a second tier market (which it is) good for shuttling transfer pax to feed their hubs.
DeleteDon't know about the rest but BEG seems to be quite important for them since they have five daily flights on A320 séries aircraft. Thing is that ex YU market is limited in size and/or income in order to be profitable for an airline like LH. That's why they have a limited presence.
DeleteSlovenia should have found a foreign partner outside of EU to set up a new airline. It would then be able to develop and not be a feeder.
ReplyDeleteYes and that's very easy to do. Emirates for example will just come and help the government to set up a new airline.
DeleteNo one except a few shady funds were interested in purchasing Adria, no one is interested in purchasing Croatia Airlines, which btw, operates in a much bigger market than Slovenia. And you expect someone will start a new airline from scratch in Slovenia with the government, restricted by EU regulations on aid, as its partner.
I was looking at flights to ZRH yesterday and I saw that LX will be sending the Helvetic Embraer to LJU as default equipment. I guess the C-series was a bit too ambitious at least in winter.
ReplyDeleteE90 is the smallest aircraft at LX's disposal.
DeleteAll Swiss A220 are temporary grounded (engine inspection). For LJU is Embrarer 170 enough. Do not know the LF on LJU ZRH route.
DeleteC series are back in the air, they were grounded for an inspection. The plane is total Western trash, all airlines are having issues with engines. I would not trust to fly on them.
DeleteFlew it last week, fantastic plane!
DeleteYes, fantastic as long as we don't talk about engines.
DeleteThey initially announced A220 from November onwards, but have reduced the planned number of rotations on them after the grounding to allow for maintenance checks. LJU likely got downgraded by default as it's been for sale for a shorter period of time and none of the daily flights are fuller than an Embraer can handle. Note A220 are still scheduled on some days in January and onwards.
DeleteThis Počivalšek guy is completely unrealistic. He wants an airline with 10-12 planes??
ReplyDeleteHe is trying to wash away his responsibility for selling Adria to criminals.
DeletePoliticians looking to impress voters.
DeleteSlovenian PM is the only one making any sense at the moment. Surprisingly realistic in this whole saga.
ReplyDeleteSlovenian PM is someone who people underestimate over, and over, and over again, just because he was a stand up comedian. But he is very smart, very realistic and always gets what he wants (and that doesn't appear to be the new national airline, though).
DeleteSlovenian PM is someone with no colour, taste or smell. Or any content whatsoever except some wannabe folk wisdom.
DeleteWell you are quite naive... Life is not that simple.
DeleteHas Lufthansa ever flown to Ljubljana?
ReplyDeleteYes, long time ago.
DeleteIt never did except from Cargo flights in the 1980s
DeleteInteresting. Thank you.
DeleteLufthansa Slovenija :D
ReplyDeleteWaste of money.
ReplyDeleteFor those going to Greece once per year.
DeleteSlovenia needs a small national carrier to serve its population and economy. Don't understand why so many people are negative towards it. This will be visible in a few months when the impact of Adria's bankruptcy is felt on Slovenian tourism, economy, connectivity and airport.
ReplyDeletePeople are not negative, they are just realistic. Slovenia is a small country with a small population. Even Wizz Air failed there, that says a lot about the local market potential.
DeleteSlovenia needs better health care infarstructure, you need a better public transport infrastructure such as Tramways and S Bahn in LJU and urban area or new rail tracks to enable higher speeds than 80 km/h and most important, you need an improved hotel infrastructure especially on the coast and in Bled, your government runned hotels are not competitive. Just watch to Croatia, Montenegro or Belgrade what kind of Hotels they offer, even Ljubljana has meanwhile an acceptable standard, especially with the Intercontinental, Radisson, Lev and Mons Sheraton.
DeleteSlovenia always relies just on its natural beauty, but thats not enough to attract the people or at least have them stay for one night more than their average 1 night they stay. Once u have this all fixed, you can go one step further and see if u get funds together to establish a SLO based carrier.
As someone who moved from Belgrade to Ljubljana 7 years ago, I totally agree with you.
DeleteSami stručnjaci
Deletewow those were all the assets Adria had? Some land, building, two apartments and airplane parts? After 58 years? Sad.
ReplyDeleteEverything else was sold off over the years.
DeleteAnd who now owns the Adria brand?
DeleteI think the company itself. It was bought by Stefan Brulitz (I think that's his name) but Adria later absorbed his company (the one that bought the brand). Of course this was all some 4K trickery but I think the brand is owned in the end by Adria again.
DeleteThey have experience in loss-making, you have to give them that.
DeleteAnd now everybody is crying how all the aviation experience will leave the country. Experience in what? Running a mom-and-pop shop with 10-15 aircraft, making 1 mio/aircraft loss in a good year?
Actually that makes sense, there is income generated by this on other fronts. Plus there is public service obligation, I don't pay taxes to live in a shitty country with no services, its pretty bad already. Why do we all choose to support railways which consume much more cash. Why do we build a road to a village with 10 persons... You have no idea how much money is spent there, and there is no big discussion every year about this. Because it makes sense in the big picture. Small minds on this forum only complain, but don't hesitate a second to waste 10 hours of own time for a cheap ticket from Venice or even further.
DeleteGRAZ / GRADEC 288.806 (1. Jan. 2019)
ReplyDeleteLJUBLJANA 288.250 (1. Juli 2017)
MARIBOR 112.065 (1. Januar 2019)
CELOVEC 100.817 (1. Jan. 2019)
So GRZ is not smaller than LJU. It is not a capital but have much more stronger economy than LJU, which has only many representative, consulates and government institutions, cleary it is the capital (compare with Graz: Magna headquarter and factory and much more) with average income of 1.800 EUR compare to 1.231 LJU (february 2019).
So the politicians like minister of economy and some secretars form government has only after collaps of ADRIA recognized what was national carrier. They are convinced that ADRIA can not collaps, because they are amateurs without any knowlegde abot airtrafiic management (even we on this forum know more). They also think how important is LJ and airport LJ. LJ is only a capital of a small boutique country nice for carry out holidays, it is so unimportant like Bratislava (no national carrier) and consecutive is unimportant LJU airport. I just asking myself what means Lufthansa manangent when those amateurs from the government comes with so ridiculous ideas about new airline (to grow up with Lufthansa), even with ideas 10-12 aircraft. We all know that LJU airport and ADRIA served only to LJU elite and politicians, all other used GRZ, VIE; TRS, ZAG, VCE and TSF. Only in GRZ was about 100.000 passenger from area close to Austrian border (so 10%). And now those elites and politicians crying and recognizing that they are so small and unimporatnt in European Union.
What ADRIA needed in the past was 3-5 aircraft (loading factor in the past was always under 70% , usually also under 50%), which must have 4-5 rotation with LF more than 80% to make a profit. And they had 20 aircrafts, it was cleary that it will collapse in the near future with this business model. So there is no chance that Slovenia will have a national carrier in the future.
LJUBLJANA City 292.988 (2019), Metropolitan area 537.712
ReplyDeletede.wikipedia: Graz metro area has 629.161 ... so about the same on that front as well
DeleteThis would be fantastic in my opinion. Hope it works out.
ReplyDeleteJU with 733 again tonight.
ReplyDelete+1
Delete9 transfers to SKP tonight.
DeleteSo many aviation experts on this blog my brain hurts
ReplyDeleteSo many pilots complaining in media day after day my brain hurts.
DeleteSo many politicians thinking Lufthansa wants to help aviation in Slovenia.
DeleteYes, everyday with every news outlets at least one article with cry-me-a-river it's apocalypse now whining.
DeleteIf I were the journalist I would in every interview ask the whining pilots (and there are basically only 3 persons that are always in the media, and one can't decide which of them is more annoying) what is he still doing here, why is he not already alswhere employed, why doesn he/the other pilots invest their own money, is he trying to milk the social security system. how many offers did he reject, and so on. Just for fun sake to cut off the sense of entitlement.
Like someone else above said. They were running a mom and pop shop and made on average 1 million EUR loss per plane per year. True rocket scientist. The only thing that made money to the firm was ACMI and they had a union led revolt and strike against ACMI. I mean yes, noone could see the demise coming. All Ray Charles category of people from the CEO down to the cleaning lady.
LJU should just be closed down and all pax diverted to other nearby airports, that way ending the Slovenian saga altogether once and for all. LJU doesn't need to exist anymore due to other big players around it with cheaper prices, bigger catchment areas which also includes LJU, and with that catchment area making sustainable conenctivity routes with the rest of europe. LJU doesn't have anything of those.
ReplyDeleteWhat do you lunch today? :D crazy mushrooms?? :D
DeleteWhy are people crying about JP? What happened to other Slovenian companies from another era? Where is Merkator, where is Gorenje, where is ...
ReplyDeleteLooking back Slovenian industry was destroyed by foreigners. Industrialist society was turned into consumers so that we can buy foreign (read German) products. They knew our economy was stronger while protected by Yugoslavia. What protection did Slovenian companies get after it? The biggest winners were politicians who privatized companies that were symbols of our country.
But hey let's be proud we have foreigners to work for now!
How exactly were the people of Slovenia better off by having to support quasi-monopolists such as Adria, Mercator, and Gorenje? In 2004, Slovenia willingly joined the EU; it was a move supported by all major political parties. EU membership allowed other companies to enter Slovenia (driving down prices by increasing competition), but it also opened up the huge EU market for innovative, flexible Slovenian companies. If Slovenia wanted to play at economic protectionism, it should never have joined the EU. Instead, it could have tried to build "Yugoslav-style socialism in one country." I wonder how that would have turned out.
ReplyDeleteThe problem with privatization in Slovenia is not that it happened, but the way it happened -- in a corrupt, nontransparent way that allowed cronyism to flourish.
Slovenia was the most developed republic in Yugoslavia .
ReplyDeleteBut without Yugoslavia there is also no more of " Being Most Developed " .
In an EU with Germany at its economic centre Slovenia is " Just As All The Others " .
Welcome in the real world !