Slovenia’s 20 years in EU reassessed
Boštjan Udovič, professor at the Chair of International Relations at the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana and co-editor of the book Slovenia and the EU, 20 Years of Membership in Perspective, writes in his opinion piece for the Slovenia Times that after being a "diligent student" for 20 years, Slovenia should become a "clever student", CE Report quotes The Slovenia Times.
Slovenia marked 20 years of membership of the European Union on 1 May this year. The anniversary, which should have been celebrated with pomp and ceremony, somehow slipped past. How come? There are several reasons, one of them being that the European Union has become something we take for granted. It is like a coat rack in a dusty corner that we hang our coat on and put our hat on when we get home in the evening. Until, after years and years of use, when we haven't paid it a minute's attention, it crumbles into dust. And we start to wonder how it got broken, forgetting that all these years we have not checked to see if it might got rusty, brittle or cracked.
That's the way it has always been with things we take for granted. Marriage, job, income, a coat stand, a wardrobe, or a car. If we take them for granted, we don't bother with them. But not dealing with them is the main mistake. Because nothing in our lives can be taken for granted. And we should also understand this when we talk about either our homeland or our wider homeland - the European Union.
Slovenia's EU membership has gone through different phases - from pre-accession EU-phoria, to satisfaction with membership, complacency, and occasional weariness. Especially when our politicians like to tell us "Brussels demands something of us". It is then that we like to wag our finger at "Brussels" and tell ourselves that "it will not boss us around anymore. If we have beaten Vienna and Belgrade, we can beat Brussels." That is not the way to go. It is not Brussels, or the European Union, that tells us what to do, it is Brussels that serves us. But it is our job to turn it from master into servant. Twenty years after Slovenia joined the Union it is time to ask ourselves whether we have come to understand EU membership correctly at all. It seems that we have not.
On joining the Union I remember a prominent politician saying that our goal had now been achieved and that everything would now be as it should be. But it was not and it is not. It is not that there is anything wrong with Brussels, quite the opposite - we have confused the fundamental postulates. Joining the European Union is not an end in itself, but a means that clever countries know how to use to their advantage to pursue mainly their own interests through common interests. In Slovenia, on joining the EU we seem to have forgotten what our interests are. Perhaps this is because we have idealised the EU, because we have associated the EU primarily with "German wages", while we have not understood the EU as a supermarket where uniform rules indeed apply to participate, but where everyone can take what they most want or need from these well-stocked shelves. Over the past 20 years we have thus behaved in a way to earn praise. We called ourselves "the diligent student", even though those of us who work in education know that teachers are always more likely to remember the "naughty students" and "bright pupils" than the diligent ones. The hard-working ones are always there somewhere, ready to take on ever new tasks. Without questions or dilemmas. Without tricks. And above all, without reflection.
And if we have been a diligent student for the last twenty years and have mainly followed along, it is perhaps time to turn the page and be clever or naughty, in a positive way of course. To go from being a follower to being a leader. But to lead, we need ideas, and to lead, we need people who are willing to invest some time and energy to break the ice and set an example of ingenuity, of ability, not just of diligence and non-confrontation. It will not be an easy road, and it will not be straightforward, but we must take the first step. We need to step out of our comfort zone and clearly define what our priorities are, what we really want and how we will contribute to the EU. The EU is "our thing", "our house", and we need to start investing in it, not just living in it (rent-free). If we do not invest in it, someone else will. And then we will be living in that house on someone else's terms, not ours. We don't want that, do we?
