Europe’s political game of musical chairs has entered an intriguing new phase. The next time the music stops, Slovenia – an Alpine country of 2m people – will be in the hot seat, running the presidency of the EU, a bloc of almost 500m people.

“It’s a little bit like taxiing a 747 with a bicycle,” one western diplomat observed. But for the former communist country, the first of the EU’s 2004 intake of new members to assume the rotating presidency, it is a sign and a test of Slovenia’s growing maturity.