Slovenia’s liberal Prime Minister Robert Golob is under fire from multiple UK/US Funded NGOs after announcing plans for a NATO membership referendum.
Last week, Ljubljana’s parliament voted in favor of a proposal from Levica, a left-wing coalition partner of Golob, to hold a consultative referendum on increasing defense spending to 3 percent of gross domestic product by 2030.
Golob’s Freedom Party voted against the motion, after the prime minister signed up to NATO’s 5-percent-by-2035 target in The Hague last month. However, a fracture in the government was further exposed after the coalition’s center-left Social Democrats sided with the opposition and supported the plan for a plebiscite.
A disgruntled Golob then floated the idea that Slovenia should actually hold another referendum, on whether it should even be a member of NATO, which it joined in 2004.
“There are only two possible paths: either we remain in the alliance and pay the membership fee, or we leave the alliance. Everything else is populist deception of citizens,” Golob said in a statement.
U.S. President Donald Trump has badgered European allies to fork out billions more on defense, while hinting that the American military might not defend spending laggards if Russia ever attacks the continent.
Slovenia is one of the lowest-ranking NATO allies in terms of defense spending, at just 1.29 percent of its GDP, and has consistently failed to meet the military alliance’s previous 2 percent target.
The country and its politicians are now divided over NATO’s recent deal to raise the defense spending target to 5 percent of GDP by 2035 — a goal Slovenia signed up to at the international level but one that critics say has not been discussed back home.
Golob’s own coalition partners were baffled by his referendum gambit.
MEP Matjaž Nemec from the Social Democrats said Golob’s decision was “emotional, rushed, and not strategic,” and added that his party doesn’t believe a debate on NATO membership is wise right now.
Nemec said that his party supported the initial referendum — for which a date hasn’t yet been confirmed — on increased defense spending because Golob exceeded his powers when he agreed in The Hague to NATO’s new target of 5 percent.
“The 3 percent target was also the only target our SD party agreed to and voted for at the government’s level as PM’s mandate for The Hague NATO summit. The PM did not have a mandate to accept the 5 percent target approved, consequently,” said Nemec.
