Robert Golob, the liberal Slovenian prime minister, announced on Friday that he would call a consultative referendum on the country’s NATO membership after a surprise defeat in parliament on a defence spending bill.
Golob’s gambit comes as part of a damage control effort in response to a successful initiative by the Left Party, the smaller partner in his centre-left coalition, to call for a consultative referendum on increasing defence spending. The referendum question will ask voters “whether they are in favour of Slovenia increasing defence spending to 3% of GDP annually in 2030, or approximately €2.1 billion.”
Golob’s liberal Freedom Movement party voted against the initiative, while his junior coalition partners—the Social Democrats and The Left—sided with the conservative opposition to back it, deepening rifts within the ruling bloc.
Discontent had been brewing since Slovenia signed up to higher NATO defence spending commitments at the NATO summit in The Hague on 24 June, which envisaged members raising military expenditure to as much as 5% of GDP by 2035. Slovenia is among the few countries that failed to meet NATO’s previous 2% GDP spending target in 2024, although Ljubljana stated it aimed to hit it by the end of 2025. Golob said his counter-referendum idea was intended to “dispel any doubt as to the true will of the people.”
Although consultative referendums are not legally binding in Slovenia, the opposition, led by conservative SDS leader Janez Janša, called on Golob to link a vote of confidence in the government to the referendum result, which Golob refused. Nevertheless, the referendum proposal is expected to be formally tabled next week.
