Ljubljana

Slovenia is stuck in a recession; the national debt and unemployment are rising. Following a number of mass protests, in February the right-centrist government was ousted and replaced by a left-centrist government under Alenka Bratušek. But there is little hope for change.

Imagine Ljubljana like a kind of Märklin capital city. It’s got everything, but small. The railway station, the airport, the parliament, everything is en miniature. No matter where you want to go, you’re there in five minutes – on foot. This little nation of two million people has existed for a little over twenty years and the euphoria is over. At first, everything went swimmingly: separation from Yugoslavia, nationhood, the economic boom, EU accession, the euro. Everything seemed easy for the little land on the border between the Balkans and Central Europe. But now there is suddenly a crisis that has gone on for two years now and there is still no light at the end of the tunnel.

Insider deals and revolts

The miniature parliament is very busy on this Wednesday. Habemus government! The new prime minister managed to put together a coalition and today a new squad of ministers is being sworn in. It is now a left-centrist government; before it was right centrist. The lady from the press department shrugs. She knows the world and the history of her homeland from the Romans to today, but she is not very interested in the daily business of politics. “I only scan over the newspaper,” she says. She does not believe that much will change; no one does. Why should politicians assert reforms, scratch away at vested rights? In a country where everyone knows one another no one wants to take anything away from anyone else.

In the meantime, though, the economic crisis revealed the internal corruption of insider deals. The banks looked away during privatization under political pressure and in many cases the old boys’ networks from socialism played a role. People know each other in Slovenia. Then, the money was pulled out of the enterprises, the interest burden weighed down, investments fell by the wayside and a number of companies had to close down. “For that I worked all my life,” an older gentleman says with bitter irony. Now he’s going onto the streets; when the demonstration committee sounds its drum, the 50+ generation is always well represented. Married couples, small groups and individuals march behind the autonomous activists who turn on the music and want “revolutionary change.”

As vague as this is for younger people, they do meet with understanding. “The revolt is necessary,” says the woman from the government press office and even a pragmatic business expert like Gertrud Rantzen, head of the German-Slovenian chamber of commerce, thinks, “Debate is overdue.” Rantzen sees Slovenia, which steered so single-mindedly to the EU and the euro, in a social crisis; in search of itself, so to say.

A country that’s too small for this world?

“There is no master plan,” she says, but by no means recommends importing Schröder’s agenda. Certainly, from the economic point of view relaxation of labour laws and cuts to some cherished extra benefits are necessary. Yet Rantzen does not believe in cure-alls. “Every nation with its traditions must find its own way,” she says. Slovenia, in her opinion, has many advantages: a good infrastructure, well-trained workers, reliability. But the country is small, so small that it will be difficult to curtail Clientelism, Rantzen fears. You know the one because he lives nearby, the other went to school with you, and you meet the third during sport.

A country that’s too small for this world. People from an entirely different direction also think that in Slovenia. For example Rastko Mocnik, the 68-year-old sociology professor with a white beard, a Yugoslavia nostalgic who is one of the most high-profile anti-capitalists in Slovenia. Ever since 1991 he hasn’t tired of describing the breakup of Yugoslavia as an error. Even today he likes to talk about the humaneness of socialism in Yugoslavia and about the radio stations in the 1970s that played the Stones even in Yugoslavia.

In the meantime, however, an entire generation has grown to adulthood on these 20,000 square kilometres between Ljubljana, Maribor and Nova Gorica. For them, socialism is history, capitalism is something that doesn’t function properly anywhere and Slovenia is something that ends after 50 kilometres. They speak fluent English and rave about Berlin. Lovely Ljubljana with its grand Baroque hems them in, but they have created tiny islands of boundlessness. Metelkova is one of these islands, the artists’ collective, the self-administered alternative centre with numerous galleries, concerts almost daily, workshops and seven clubs. Metelkova is a sort of alternative social draft, with space for all, a little urbanity with a touch of international flair, also a little socialism, but without any 1970s fug, thank you. The centre arose twenty years ago when vacated military barracks were occupied by a group of artists. Today for many Metelkova is mainly the place for their Friday-night partying. And yet it is different here than elsewhere. The space largely eludes state control, no one pays rent, no one pays taxes, and no one cares about the no-smoking rule. No restrictions here …