A star pupil playing it safe in the EU: an inside view of the first Slovenian EU Council Presidency, January-June 2008

Summary:

This paper explores the domestic political background, the organisation, and the political priorities of Slovenia’s Presidency of the Council of the European Union in the first half of 2008. Slovenia was the first among the Central and Eastern European member states that joined the EU in 2004 to hold the chair.

The paper argues that the EU Presidency serves as a powerful instrument of the further ‘Europeanisation’ of Slovenia in terms of, on the one hand, the adoption of European practices, norms and values, and on the other hand, promoting its political interests to the European level.