Published by the Institute for Strategic Solutions (ISR)
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Everything we have published
- No problem a phone call can't solve
As Aleksandar Vučić trades the presidency for the premiership, he is betting on a model of governance in which nothing works unless he personally makes it work.
- One region, two clocks
While tribal rhetoric treats past grievances as political currency, an unforgiving demographic clock is ticking. Economic integration is no longer a soft diplomatic exercise; it is a brutal necessity.
- No second act
Ajša Vodnik went from co-owning a television channel to running AmCham Slovenia and chairing AmChams in Europe. She does not believe in second acts.
- Slovenia's largest bank mulls the one Western Balkan market it does not have
NLB is preparing to open a representative office in Albania and would consider an acquisition if a bank came up for sale, the president of its management board told a business forum in Celje.
- The timber trade Slovenia has not built yet
Albania spent €349.3 million on wood imports last year. Slovenia has 2.2 million cubic metres of approved timber going uncut. It supplies €884,000.
- Let your children screw up
A generation spared every mistake will eventually inherit problems it has never been allowed to practise solving.
- Maribor wants a bigger cut of what passes through it
Slovenia's second city is trying to turn geography into an economic model.
- Who are the young people shaping the future of the Euro-Atlantic world?
A generation no longer willing to wait for its opportunity. A generation growing up in a time when security can no longer be taken for granted.
- Slovenia has plenty of plans. It could do with some decisions
Lightly indebted energy companies and willing banks are meeting a scarcer commodity. Projects far enough along to be financed.
- The price of comfort
Slovenia recycles 59.8 per cent of its municipal waste, yet only 10.1 per cent of the material entering its economy comes from recovered sources. The gap is not a Slovene anomaly but a European one, and it has stopped being an environmental question.
- Hub for creativity
Center Rog is establishing itself as a unique venue on the European map of creative hubs, bringing together a wide range of production laboratories within a single space.
- The creative class
The universality of art is unconditional. The same applies to contemporary creative achievements, whether we have in mind verbal artistic creations or silent, figurative works of art.
- Slovenia confronts its export dependency as geopolitical shocks multiply
The Institute for Strategic Solutions (ISR) convened policymakers, economists and business leaders at EU House to examine how Slovenia's export-driven economy can withstand sudden geopolitical and economic shocks.
- Leisure with a historic twist: Active isolation in the Soča Valley
Where soldiers once marched through alpine mists, today's travelers arrive to engage with the landscape on entirely different terms. The Soča Valley is the home of the modern holiday.
- When old technology was new
Electric vehicles, self-driving cars, artificial intelligence, and quantum computers are no longer just buzzwords; they are real technologies entering and reshaping the market after decades of development.
- Creating memories on an industrial scale
The King's Birthday is not about a date of birth. It is a constitutional celebration, timed for good weather and designed to create beautiful memories at scale.
- Statehood by design
Throughout the region, statehood is being projected through HTML. Each state-owned online portal doubles as a strategy in soft power, designed as much for functionality for its citizens as for European commissioners with clipboards.
- The Western Balkans diaspora is coming home to invest
For decades, millions kept their homelands afloat by sending money back. Now they're returning with something more powerful: investment, influence, and the means to build lasting economic transformation.
- How Balkan companies are redefining the CEE market
While Central Europe wrestled with German industrial slowdown, Western Balkan companies quietly pushed ahead with diversified exports, domestic consumption and regional stamina.
- Between tempting offers and a lost Europe
Development economist Sibil Svilan warns that 2026 is the final warning for the Western Balkans to choose the European path or slide into a grey geopolitical zone caught between Chinese, Russian and Arab influence.
- How Adriatic states vote at the UN
Between Washington and Moscow, the region's UN record settles in the middle, and rarely stays still.
- The maritime transformation of Albania
With 440 kilometres of Adriatic coastline, Albania is finally claiming its place on the Mediterranean shipping map.
- Rethinking business in a multipolar world
Dr Mojmir Mrak on geopolitical shifts, EU competitiveness, and what Slovenia and the Western Balkans must do to survive a turbulent new era.
- Putin-proofing Europe. One cow at a time
The EU wants a sevenfold increase in biomethane by 2030 to replace Russian gas. It has the technology and the feedstock. What it lacks is the regulatory architecture to connect them.