What followed was the challenge of accession to the European Union (EU). The EU was a positive challenge not only for having much higher standard of living but also having much more sound and ethical legal basis. This all kept us working to attain the EU membership. It was a positive experience and a means to transform from a former socialist to an advanced democratic country, a process that takes time, however in a positive direction. It was a pleasure to experience the day when Slovenia became a full EU member in 2004 and our national Slovenian language was adopted as an official EU language. We were glad to be allowed freely to move along EU, more than thousand kilometres around us and be as welcome as many other EU nationals.
No system is perfect as nothing human is perfect. So is neither the EU. It possibly went rather far (away) from initial goodwill. But like our lives, also state structures need challenges to be kept alive and to improve. Nothing is for granted.
So we are living now in a period of such challenges for the whole world (climate change, demographic change, globalisation, war/peace, slow economic recovery with low prospects) as we are also living in Europe of today with wars not so far from us, numerous refugees, slow economic growth that seem to drive quarrel among the member states.
We think it’s really like in our lives: when God sends us a burden, it is on us to decide turning it into a blessing by searching for a divine providence. It is not really the way and the time looking for a comfort in this situation.
As our EU had been initiated after a terrible WWII war among our nations and just to reverse the hatred into cooperation, we have NO other chance, but to build common future. We believe, we need to work hard, but it is like a family with many members that have to do a lot to secure everyday’s life, fair to everybody and in love. Then we can peacefully wait for the Lord to accomplish our work.
As said, life on earth is not perfect and we need to wake up as coming years tend to be much different than the past decades that seemed not to need our action to secure our common good. But we shall definitely be brave Christians in this.
Franc & Andrej