Janez Jansa has long viewed next year’s European Union presidency as a launch-pad – not just to raise his country’s international profile but also to aid his re-election as Slovenia’s prime minister. Now with weeks to go to the start of one of the biggest international challenges for Slovenia since winning independence from Yugoslavia in 1991, the 49-year-old former student activist is fighting a bitter battle on both fronts.
Preparations for the presidency have dominated much of his, and his centre-right coalition government’s, time in recent months. “I and my colleagues are every day somewhere, not in Ljubljana more or less, but dealing with European issues,” he tells the Financial Times. “And in the first half of next year the situation will be even worse,” he adds.
