Under the new distribution, which still needs to get the go-ahead from the Council of the EU, the number of seats in the European Parliament will increase by 15, from 705 to 720. The extra seats are being allocated to a total of 12 member states.

In Slovenia, preparations for the June 2024 elections are under way but they have been mostly kept out of the public eye.

This will be the first Euro elections for the Freedom Movement, the party of Prime Minister Robert Golob. It is not yet clear when the party's list of candidates will be unveiled, MEP Klemen Grošelj (Renew) said.

He and fellow party member Irena Joveva are willing to stand for re-election. Both of them won their seats on the ticket of the Marjan Šarec List, which has since become part of the Freedom Movement.

"It is my wish to run, but whether that wish will be fulfilled I don't know," Grošelj told the Slovenian Press Agency on the sidelines of the 13 September session in Strasbourg.

Commenting on the suggestions that he might be a candidate for a European commissioner, he said he knew nothing about it and that no one had spoken to him about it.

The Democrats (SDS), the largest opposition party, have also started their preparations for the race. In the last election, the party ran together with the non-parliamentary People's Party (SLS).

"It is in the interest of the SDS that our two MEPs, who are doing a good job, run for office again," SDS leader Janez Janša said recently about Milan Zver and Romana Tomc (EPP).

It is still up in the air whether they will indeed run again, he added, noting that the party's list of candidates would not be announced anytime soon. Both MEPs are willing to run again.

The smaller opposition party, the Christian democratic New Slovenia (NSi), has already completed registration of potential candidates, which include the party's current MEP Ljudmila Novak (EPP), as well as senior party members, among them leader Matej Tonin.

Tonin has invited the SLS as well as the platform headed by Anže Logar, the former foreign minister and senior member of the SDS, to form a joint ticket for the EU elections, but Logar declined the offer.

Meanwhile, the SLS's current MEP Franc Bogovič (EPP) said the party's door to collaboration remained open and there had been progress in talks with the NSi.

Novak has not ruled out the possibility of standing for another term, but media have reported that she did rule out standing on the same ticket as Logar.

The other two Slovenian MEPs represent the Social Democrats (SD), one of the junior parties of the ruling coalition. Both Matjaž Nemec and Milan Brglez (S&D) have confirmed they plan to run again.

The question is which one of them will head the party's ticket. Some sources suggest the odds are looking better for Nemec, who replaced party leader Tanja Fajon in the European Parliament after she won a seat in the National Assembly in the 2022 election before going on to become the country's foreign minister.

Source: STA