Conclusions
Although Slovenia does not have a formal WGA, it has a de facto one in practice. Behind this are three main drivers. First, the tradition of cooperating and integrating policy issues in political management in Slovenia has a long tradition. This stems from the fact that, in accordance with the Yugoslav Constitution of 1974, Slovenia established the Republic Committee for International Cooperation as the first formal structure for managing its efforts related to international cooperation. Following Slovenia’s independence in 1991, this served as a basis for the Slovene Ministry for Foreign Affairs in both structural and organisational terms. In other words, an administrative governmental notion of cooperation and coordination has a long and proven track record in the country.
Second, being engaged in a series of outstanding multilateral projects in the first decade and a half after its independence enabled Slovenia to develop very early on a special policy sense for taking a soft- power approach in multilateral efforts, on the one hand, and to frequently set up ad hoc structures capable of producing integrated, comprehensive and coordinated policy results, on the other.
Third, Slovenia’s first-ever holding of the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU in 2008 has been the strongest push to date towards transforming its informal WGA into a formalised one. The main WGA-related challenges it faced during the presidency involved taking an integrated, comprehensive and coordinated approach (within the Slovene government as well as within the structures of the EU, with its member states and with other international actors) towards Kosovo’s proclamation of independence and the conclusion of a partnership and cooperation agreement (PCA) with the Russian Federation. The presidency also influenced important structural changes in the organisational setup of Slovenia’s public administration (especially of the Office of the Prime Minister and the ministries of Foreign Affairs and Defence). Structural changes were also introduced as a result of responding to the 2015/2016 migration crisis as well as of holding the presidency of the UN Human Rights Council in 2018.
Another important characteristic of Slovenia that contributes to its informal WGA is its administration’s high level of flexibility when it comes to adapting to structural challenges. Indeed, whether it involves foreign policy, defence, development cooperation or closely related areas, Slovenia’s de facto WGA has been able to swiftly, flexibly and efficiently respond to concrete challenges and produce successful results.
One can already say that Slovenia’s de facto WGA works well in practice, efficiently producing high-quality policy outcomes. It is backed by various policy statements in a wide range of documents (strategies, declarations, action plans), and it rests on numerous, primarily ad hoc structures.
Given these experiences, structures, characteristics and documents – and the fact that there are many leaders who recognise the need for an integral, coordinated and comprehensive approach – Slovenia’s de facto WGA could be easily and smoothly upgraded from an ad hoc approach to a formalised, institutionalised and policy- backed WGA.
In addition to the experiences Slovenia has gained while developing its policies (as discussed above), there are three success factors that could underpin such a transformation. First, the current government has a strong, informal group made up of a determined prime minister and highly experienced ministers who are used to working together in a WGA-like manner and could back and assist with a formalisation effort. Second, since Slovenia held the presidency of the Council of the EU in 2008, there has been continuous (though admittedly not very visible) policy planning support for activities and decisions related to foreign policy. Third, there are the two important drivers of Slovenia’s foreign policy ambitions: outside policy influence and encouragement combined with internal policy decisions. For example, the fact that Slovenia was the first of the group of countries that became EU member states in 2004 resulted from both initiative within EU circles in Brussels and Slovenia’s political ambitions, which increased as a result of having already successfully managed multilateral projects, such as while holding the OSCE chairmanship in 2005. It also had a successful presidency of the UN Human Rights Council in 2018, and its forthcoming presidency of the Council of the EU in the second half of 2021 offers an excellent opportunity for Slovenia to articulate a formal WGA in terms of structures and policies.