According to localcollegeexplorer, the Slovenes settled in the alpine territories of the upper Drava and the Sava, pushing towards the Isonzo and the upper Timavo, at the end of the 6th century. From subjection to the Avars and from the dominion of the Franco Samo (623-658), they passed to the Bavarians (745-788), the Franks (788-907) and the Magyars (907-955) until, in the 11th-12th century., small German feudal dynasties or dynasties subject to the empire dominated various parts of the Slovenia, which with the ascent to the imperial throne of the Habsburgs remained firmly linked to Vienna until 1918. For centuries the Slovenes lacked a strictly Slovenian ruling class; only the Reformation and therefore the Counter-Reformation laid the foundations, with the language, of a Slovenian national conscience. In 1809-13, the creation by Napoleon of the Illyrian Provinces, with Ljubljana as its capital, was considered by the Slovenes as an important recognition of their national individuality; the requests for autonomy from Vienna, which re-emerged during the crisis of 1848-49, remained however confined to a small circle of intellectuals. ● After the Austrian defeat in the First World War, the Slovenes joined the creation of a South-Slavic kingdom (1918). Shared between Italy and Germany in 1941, in 1946 the Slovenia became part of Yugoslavia as a federated republic, but the death of Tito (1980), combined with the economic crisis of the 1980s and national tensions, also led to Slovenia, as in the other Yugoslav republics, a phase of instability evolved into separatist sentiments. The first multi-party elections in 1990 were thus won in Parliament by the separatists; at the same time M. Kučan, candidate of the Democratic Renewal Party (heir to the Communist League of Slovenia) was elected president. ● In June 1991 independence was proclaimed; the military crisis that followed saw the Slovenian territorial forces and the armed forces opposing each other Yugoslavs who, after signing a ‘ceasefire’ in July, withdrew in October. In 1992 the situation stabilized politically and economically, and following the legislative elections J. Drnovšek became head of the government (reappointed in 1996 and 2000; president from 2002 to 2007). In the second half of the 1990s the nationalist sentiment grew among the Slovenian population and the tendency, which emerged already during the 1980s, to underline the historical position of the country in the European context, was confirmed, to polemically reiterate the non-belonging of the Slovenia to the world. Slavic and Balkan. In 2004 Slovenia joined NATO and the European Union. The political elections of October 2004 were won by the Democratic Party (Slovenska demokratska stranka,SDS), a center-right formation, whose leader J. Jansa formed a new government coalition. The majority’s plans for cuts to the welfare state and fiscal neoliberalism provoked widespread internal opposition. On the international level, relations with Serbia became tense due to the support given to Kosovo’s independence. The government’s policy was however rewarded by economic and financial stability, which in 2007 allowed Slovenia to become the first ex-communist country to have successfully carried out the changeover to the euro. In 2007 the presidential elections were won by D. Turk, a center-left candidate; the same alignment prevailed in the legislative of the following year. The government of B. Pahor, in office since November 2008, had to deal with the serious crisis that hit the Slovenia due to the decline in exports and an 8% annual economic contraction; accused of inaction, after failing to achieve the confidence requested in the chambers on 20 September 2011, Pahor handed over his post to the President of the Republic, who called early elections. Despite forecasts of a political alternation after the failure of the Pahor government, the left-wing party Slovenia led by Z. Janković was the winner in the consultations held in December 2011 with 28.5% of the votes. The statement of measure forced Janković to try to create a rather large coalition with the other forces of the center-left, but having failed to obtain a majority for the formation of the executive, in January 2012, President Turk opened another round of consultations; it ended with the appointment of Jansa, who had already led the country from 2004 to 2008 and who obtained the investiture from Parliament with 51 out of 90 votes. The presidential consultations held in November 2012 recorded victory in the first round by former Prime Minister Pahor, who won 40% of the votes against 35.84% of the outgoing president Turk; the result was confirmed by the ballot held in the following December, which sanctioned the victory of Pahor with 67.44% of the votes.

In February 2013, following allegations of corruption and fiscal irregularities, Parliament disheartened Prime Minister Jansa and entrusted center-left opposition leader A. Bratušek with the task of forming a new government. Slovenia’s first female premier, Bratušek has reached an agreement for a coalition government between the positive Slovenia party, of which she is pro tempore president, and the center-left and center parties represented by the Social Democrats, the Pensioners’ Party and the Civic List. Replaced in April 2014 at the head of the positive Slovenia party by Janković, the following month Bratušek resigned from his post as premier. The early elections held in July recorded the clear affirmation of M. Cerar, a jurist exponent of the center-left and actively engaged against corruption, who with the newly formed Party of M. Cerar (Stranka Mira Cerarja, SMC) obtained 34.6% of the votes against the 20.6% received by the Democratic Party, while in the November 2017 ballot the outgoing president Pahor was reconfirmed in office with 53.6% of the preferences. In March 2018, following the annulment by the Supreme Court of the referendum that had approved an ambitious railway project supported by the center-left, Cerar resigned from his position as premier; in the early elections held in the following June, the xenophobic right-wing front represented by the SDS of the former premier Jansa prevailed, which won 25% of the preferences, followed by the formation of the center-left and populist Lista by Marjan Šarec (List Marjana Šarca,LMS) with 12.7% of the votes, and by the party of the outgoing prime minister, renamed Stranka Modernega Centra (SMC), which received 9.5% of the votes, dropping from 36 to 10 seats. In the European elections held in May 2019 there was a clear affirmation of the Conservatives (26.4%), followed by the Social Democrats (18.6%) and by the list of Prime Minister Šarec (15.5%), who in January 2020, the impossibility for the executive to carry out the reforms necessary for the country, Janša resigned, taking over from the following March. However, the authoritarian policies of the new executive quickly eroded its popularity, as evidenced by the result of the referendum held in July 2021 on the law, already approved by Parliament, which expands the possibilities of carrying out public construction works on the banks of rivers and on the coast, to which 87% of the voters expressed a negative opinion;

From 1 July to 31 December 2021, Slovenia presided over the Council of the European Union.