By: Vida Kocjan
In December, most of Slovenia’s leading institutions, such as the Bank of Slovenia, the Institute of Macroeconomic Analysis and Development, and the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, announced that economic growth for the entire year 2025 will be around 1 percent or even less. The figures are shocking, as this is the lowest annual growth since 2020 and far worse than Slovenia’s long‑term average.
In our country, we have been witnessing a decline in economic growth throughout the entire term of the ruling coalition (Svoboda, SD, and Levica) under the leadership of Robert Golob. In the election year 2022, growth was 2.7 percent, the year after 2.4, last year 1.7, and in 2025 barely 1 percent or even less. These figures are concerning.
Let us recall: 2020 was a year of pandemic shock, lockdowns, supply‑chain disruptions, and extraordinary state interventions. We faced the biggest health crisis not only in Slovenia but internationally. Therefore, 2020 was not a reference year of a normal economic cycle. Slovenia then emerged from the crisis in 2021 under the government of Janez Janša with 8.4 percent growth, as a winner. Under Golob’s government we are declining, and the real reasons are primarily internal. Golob and the coalition are not managing things.
If now, after five years, we find ourselves roughly at the same point, this means a lost period. In the meantime, living costs have risen significantly, inflation has eroded purchasing power, and productivity has not kept pace with the growth of wages and prices. The real income of the population is falling; with the same or greater effort, we can afford less.
What is particularly problematic is that economic growth does not allow for any serious catching up with more developed economies. Despite Golob’s misleading claims, neighbouring countries without socialist governments are overtaking us. International institutions are also lowering their forecasts for Slovenia.
All this means that the country is spinning in circles, and the path of long‑term development is simply not a priority for the government led by Robert Golob. What this means and where it leads hardly needs to be emphasised. Toward stagnation and decline.