Spike in illegal migration met with fiery rhetoric

With a new migration route opening via Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenian police registered 8,781 illegal border crossings in the first eleven months of the year, more than five times the figure registered in the same period a year ago. And this despite the border fence.

Most of the migrants crossing illegally from Croatia were apprehended in the areas patrolled by the Koper and Novo Mesto police departments, along with an increasing number of smugglers. In a spate of migrant deaths the border river Kolpa claimed nine lives with another drowning reported in the Reka.

Unlike during the 2015-16 migration crisis when most of the migrants were Syrians, the biggest groups this time came from Pakistan, Algeria and Morocco. Matej Tonin, the head of the parliamentary Intelligence Oversight Commission, reported that roughly half of them were returned to Croatia, while the majority of the others "evaporated in the course of the asylum procedure".

Meanwhile, Slovenia fully met its commitments under the relocation and resettlement plans agreed in 2016, taking in 40 Syrian refugees from Turkey as well as completing the relocation of 253 asylum seekers from Greece and Italy under an EU scheme. Although Slovenia initially committed to relocate 567, Italy and Greece failed to submit the documents necessary to meet the full quota.

Migration was the main issue in the general election. Campaigning on a nativist agenda of the type advocated by Viktor Orban in Hungary, the Democratic Party emerged as the winner but ruined its chances of forming a government. Anti-immigrant sentiment also reinstated the far-right National Party back to parliament after a seven-year hiatus, while PM Marjan Šarec shocked by picking a man known for his radical anti-immigrant views as his security aide.

Slovenia's official position on migration has not changed though and the country joined the controversial UN Pact for Migration in December despite protests by the right-wing opposition.