Slovenia 2019
Yearbook 2019
Slovenia. In the elections to the European Parliament on May 26, a Conservative electoral list with the Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS) and the smaller Slovenian People’s Party (SLS) was the largest with 26.3% of the vote, which meant 3 seats (of the country’s 8). The Social Democrats got 18.7% (2 seats) and the reigning liberal Marjan Šarec’s list got 15.4% (2 seats). Conservative New Slovenia (NSI) received 11.1% (1 mandate). The turnout did not impress, only 28.9%.
At the beginning of the year, an opinion poll showed that 65% of voters supported their government in September 2018 – despite some government scandals. In November 2018, Development Minister Marko Bandelli had been forced to resign after accusations of meddling in local elections; In January, Minister of Culture Dejan Prešiček resigned accused of bullying and abuse of power, and in February, Environment Minister Jure Leben was forced to resign because in his role as Minister of Infrastructure he made a procurement around a railway construction which became twice as expensive as the nearest competitor’s tender. The Environment Minister said it was due to an “administrative mistake”.
- ABBREVIATIONFINDER.ORG: Click to see the meanings of 3-letter acronym and abbreviation of SLO in general and in geography as Slovenia in particular.
During the summer, Slovenia suffered from two political scandals of a political nature – although it did not lead to diplomatic entanglements. In July, artist Brad Downey had placed a natural-size wooden statue depicting US first lady Melania Trump in her hometown of Sevnica. The statue had been roughly shaped from a tree trunk with the help of a chainsaw. A month later, artist Tomaz Schlegl placed a statue of Donald Trump himself in the town of Sela pri Kamniku. This is a comment on populism. “For the first time since World War II, populism is increasing: look at [Boris] Johnson, at Trump, our president or [Viktor] Orbán,” the artist said in a comment. One resident of the city thought it was a “waste of wood”.
Population 2019
According to CountryAAH, the population of Slovenia in 2019 was 2,078,543, ranking number 149 in the world. The population growth rate was 0.040% yearly, and the population density was 103.2102 people per km2.
HUMAN AND ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY
The Republic of St. is one of sovereign states born of the dissolution of the old Yugoslavia, preserving the land area (20. 251 km ²) and the boundaries of the homonymous existing federated republic within that country. Proclaimed independence in 1991, it was recognized almost immediately by the main European states and shortly thereafter by many other countries and international organizations, and in 1996 it obtained the status of state associated with the European Union (see below: History). Since the same year it has been part of the CEFTA (Central European Free Trade Agreement) with the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Poland.
Population
The great majority of the population (88%) is of Slovenian ethnicity; there is no shortage of Croatian, Serbian, Slavic-Muslim, Magyar, Macedonian, Albanian and, in northern Istria, Italian minorities, residual groups of the numerous compatriots residing there until 1945. The dominant religion is Catholic. The population has been in slight decline for some years. The capital, Ljubljana, with a central European appearance, has 330. 000 residents; of the other cities only Maribor (Marburg), very close to the Austrian border, is just over 100. 000 residents.
Economic conditions
Among the states of the former Yugoslavia, Slovenia is the country with the most solid economy and the one that has best overcome the economic crisis of the late 1980s and early 1990s. In terms of economic growth, the 1990s were good and the privatization program is well developed.
More than half of the Slovenian territory, despite the prevalent karst nature, is covered by forests, which provide a good production of timber; about a quarter is occupied by meadows and pastures, which allow the breeding of a large number of cattle and pigs; little space remains for agriculture itself, which nevertheless manages to supply cereals, potatoes, beets, apples and wine grapes in fair quantities.
By now almost exhausted the extraction of mercury from the former Italian deposit of Idria, the only significant mineral wealth of the Slovenia is represented by lignite. About a quarter of the Krško nuclear power plant contributes to the national energy production. There is also the usual range of industrial productions, ranging from steel to beer. Foreign trade, after the crisis connected with the collapse of the Yugoslav market, takes place for at least a quarter with Germany, but also exchanges with Italy, France and Austria and those, now renewed, with Croatia, they’re important. In the strip of Istria that is part of the Slovenia, from Koper to Piran, tourism flourishes, which has nevertheless suffered from the political crisis of the Slavic Adriatic.
