Welcome to Wider Europe, RFE/RL's newsletter focusing on the key issues concerning the European Union, NATO, and other institutions and their relationships with the Western Balkans and Europe's Eastern neighborhoods.
I'm RFE/RL Europe Editor Rikard Jozwiak, and this week I am drilling down on two issues: The Slovenian election and a difficult EU summit.
Briefing #1: Slovenians Vote In Crucial, Overlooked Poll
What You Need To Know: There are no national elections in any of the big European countries in 2026, which is something of anomaly -- and a relief for many. Instead, all eyes have turned to the frenetic run-up to the April 12 election in Hungary in which polls indicate that the 16-year reign of Viktor Orban may come be coming to an end.
But before that, there's another election that's little discussed and yet could have consequences for the EU. The parliamentary vote in Slovenia, home to 2 million people, on March 22 could act as something of a bellwether of things to come in Hungary. It represents a battle between the liberal-centrist incumbent and former businessman Robert Golob's Freedom Movement Party (GS) and his conservative rival, Janez Jansa of the Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS).
Deep Background: Jansa has been the towering figure of Slovenian politics for decades and was instrumental in securing the independence of the country as Yugoslavia violently disintegrated in the 1990s. He is now seeking a fourth term as prime minister.
While this election is about many things, Jansa's polarizing nature is a topic very much on voters' minds.
Luka Lisjak, a historian and editor at Razpotja & Eurozine, told RFE/RL that the SDS leader "has been many things during this career, almost everything: hardcore communist to left-wing critic of the regime to liberal, neoliberal, neoconservative nationalist."
"In 2026, he is the representative of the let's say, the Trumpist current of the European right wing," Lisjak added.
Jansa is not shy about playing up his alignment with the sitting US president. In fact, he was one of few world leaders who congratulated Trump on his claims of having won the 2020 American presidential race. And like Trump he is prolific on social media; his previous premiership in 2020-2022 was characterized by constant spats with mainstream media and various cultural wars.
If back in power, he is expected to form something of a "sovereignist alliance" within the EU together with Orban, Slovakia's Robert Fico, and the Czech Republic's Andrej Babis in which they will rail against Brussels ideas on green politics, migration, rule of law issues and a more federal union.
While the SDS is still part of the mainstream center-right European People's Party (EPP), it was indicative that its members in the European Parliament voted against current European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen -- an EPP colleague -- when she was re-elected in 2025.
On foreign policy, the leaders of the Western Balkans will be apprehensive of a repeat of an alleged policy paper from 2021 that Jansa denied authorship of that would create a greater Albania, Croatia, and Serbia. He would also almost certainly reverse the current government's pro-Palestinian stance in favor of closer ties with Israel and bigger support for the current US-Israeli war with Iran.
There is one issue, however, where he markedly differs from Orban and Fico: Russia. He was the first foreign leader (alongside Czech and Polish colleagues) to visit Kyiv shortly after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Here, he would be more closely aligned with another conservative European politician, according to Lisjak.
"He remains much more supportive of Ukraine's defense and is much more critical of Vladimir Putin. And therefore, maybe not so much in internal politics but in foreign politics, I would say the most similar would be Georgia Meloni in Italy."
Drilling Down:
- Jansa's potential comeback can also be ascribed to Golob's somewhat lackluster performance in government in the past four years with domestic issues of various sorts dominating the debates.
- Dimitar Keranov of the German Marshall Fund (GMF) points out that while the Slovenian economy is rather stable compared with some other countries in the region, "you have questions like wage growth, housing affordability, even inflation. And of course, the second key issue is health care and public services. So for example, long waiting times, staff shortages are the most visible political issues."
- The flight of qualified medical personnel to neighboring Austria has been a hot potato as the government supposedly wedded to the bread-and-butter issues of the center left haven't seemed capable of delivering.
- But Keranov also sees another advantage for the SDS:"Golob and his party haven't been so effective in mobilizing online or having this effective online communication strategy, whereas I think Jansa's party has been more effective in the online communication domain. And I think this is nowadays decisive."
- It's also the issue of how Golob came to power back in 2022, as a new kid on the block on the back of a wave of voter fatigue of Jansa's Covid-19 handling and the relative implosion of the center left.
- That he teamed up to form a government with the center-left Social Democrats and the even more left-leaning Levica party also created an issue, according to Lisjak:
- "I think [it was] probably the most left- wing government Slovenia has had in 25 years or so. So there is a big chunk of the population that voted for him because they were fed up with Jansa's government but did not expect such a clear turn to the left in political and social issues and they're disappointed with. Those are the voters that he will have a hard time winning back."
- Ultimately, that is what will determine the outcome of the elections: not Jansa's SDS and Golob's GS that will go toe-to-toe for first place with something between 20 and 30 percent of the vote, but a myriad of smaller parties that hope to clear the 4 percent threshold and become the kingmakers.
- In this mix are not only Golob's current coalition partners but potentially also the Pirate party that tends to swing left, a trio of center-right parties that run as an alliance and could prop up a future Jansa government even if one or two of them go the other way, a pro-Russia anti-establishment party, Resnica, that dislike both camps, and the likely third place finisher, the Democrats.
- This party, created by Jansa's former foreign minister Anze Logar, could be the party to look at on election night -- even though the coalition-building to get the 46-seat majority in parliament may take much longer and be much messier than that.
Briefing #2: Little Progress On Ukraine, Iran Expected As EU leaders Gather
What You Need To Know: EU leaders are meeting in Brussels on March 19-20 for a summit that initially was supposed to deal with how the bloc can become more economically competitive on the world stage. Instead, the meeting is likely to show that two of its "signature deliveries" on Ukraine -- a 90-billion-euro loan and another sanctions package on Russia -- remain essentially stuck, and there is precious little that the club can deliver on when it comes to the war on Iran.
The blockage on both items related to Ukraine is a direct consequence of a Hungarian veto (with Slovakia while not being as vocal, backing Budapest). The Ukraine financial aid was already agreed at a summit in December when Hungary and Slovakia, alongside the Czech Republic, got an opt-out, but you still need unanimity to change the way the common EU budget is set up to ensure that the loan will go to Kyiv.
Hungary has refused to give its thumbs up ever since the Soviet-era Druzhba pipeline carrying Russian oil to Central Europe was damaged in Ukraine in later January.
Deep Background: Several EU officials who RFE/RL have spoken under the condition of anonymity said they had hoped the issue would be resolved by the summit but are now skeptical, especially given the increasingly hostile rhetoric coming from both Budapest and Kyiv.
With Orban facing a tough re-election battle on April 12, the issue has dominated the domestic political cycle. At the EU Foreign Affairs Council on March 16, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto suggested Ukraine could restart the pipeline but refuses for purely political reasons.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, meanwhile, accused European allies of blackmailing his country to reopen Druzhba.
The European Commission wants to send a fact-finding mission to the damaged part, located in Ukraine, which Kyiv so far has refused, and a coordinated letter exchange between the Ukrainian leader and von der Leyen to pave the way for such a mission has not happened, much to the frustration of many EU diplomats.
The draft EU summit conclusions, seen by RFE/RL, are still optimistic that a deal will be stuck on the issue. The text notes that "following its December 2025 decision to provide Ukraine with a support loan of EUR 90 billion for 2026 and 2027, the European Council welcomes the adoption of the loan by the co-legislators and looks forward to the first disbursement to Ukraine by the beginning of April."
While it's seen as positive that this text isn't in brackets -- normally an indication that it has yet to be agreed on by all 27 member states -- it is worth pointing out that at other summits Hungary has simply opted out of Ukraine-related parts of the meeting declarations.
- Drilling Down:
- Regarding the 20th sanctions package, there is even less hope that anything will be agreed this week. Here, the text is clearly in brackets, and according to EU diplomats it is more likely that the text, rather than the brackets, will disappear during the actual meeting.
- The aim initially was for the measures to be adopted around the fourth anniversary of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, but now that the deadline's passed there isn't the same urgency.
- This also has to do with the fact that the headline item of the proposed measures -- a full maritime service ban on vessels carrying Russian oil -- has become increasingly unattractive since US-Israeli strikes on Iran earlier have driven energy prices through the roof.
- Instead, there have been calls, notably by Orban, to drop the bloc's energy sanctions on Russia, following the United States decision to pause its restrictive measures linked to energy on the Kremlin for a month. The EU, however, is not planning to go that far, with the renewal of its sectoral sanctions on Moscow coming up first in July.
- The EU response, or lack thereof, will likely be the main discussion point at the summit. In the draft conclusions, the regular EU lines are being repeated.
- There are "calls for de-escalation and maximum restraint" and "full respect of international law by all parties." It "strongly condemns Iran's indiscriminate military strikes against countries in the region" and adds that Tehran "must never be allowed to acquire a nuclear weapon."
- But there are two crucial issues to be addressed: assisting the United States in keeping the Strait of Hormuz open for navigation and combatting higher electricity prices in the EU as a result of its blockage.
- This comes as the US President Donald Trump warned NATO allies that they face a "very bad future" if they don't support the American effort to reopen the key maritime corridor.
- One European diplomat told RFE/RL that most European countries want to "appear helpful" to Washington by balancing this with the desire to not be "sucked into the conflict."
- A potential "coalition of the willing" of various naval assets could be gathered, and there are suggestions to boost the EU naval mission of the coast of Yemen, called Aspides, even though it only contains four boats at present and hasn't been "too effective" in preventing attacks from Huthi rebels, according to several EU officials.
- The big fight could instead come about whether to water down the EU's climate goals in order to combat higher electricity bills, a direct consequence of the Iran war.
- With fears that this is a surefire way for populists of various hues to gain even more electoral votes, the summit conclusions stipulate "a review of the emissions trading system (ETS) at the latest by July."
- Some countries like Italy and Poland would prefer the ETS to be even more watered down, whereas Spain and Sweden see it is a central plank for the bloc to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
Looking Ahead
On March 18, the European Union and Iceland will sign a so-called Security and Defense Pact. Brussels has previously signed this sort of deal to deepen defense cooperation with numerous close allies such as Albania, Canada, Japan, Moldova, and the United Kingdom, but this signature is symbolic as it comes in the middle of a big debate in Iceland about closer ties with the bloc, with the island planning a referendum in late August to resume EU accession talks.
That's all for this week!
Feel free to reach out to me on any of these issues on X @RikardJozwiak, or on e-mail at jozwiakr@rferl.org .
Until next time,
Rikard Jozwiak
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