Prime Minister Robert Golob: The community can only be safe when it stands in solidarity

"Freedom of education. What we may take for granted today was practically impossible a hundred years ago," said the Prime Minister, emphasising the courageous struggle of women. "The freedom to decide over one's own body. The freedom to choose how we begin and end our lives. These freedoms seem self-evident to us today, but they were hard-won and must never be taken for granted."

The Prime Minister warned that there have always been forces attempting to take away these rights, and that they have not disappeared today either. "In this turbulent world, security is no longer self-evident. For many decades, we have lived under the illusion that nothing could threaten security. Today, we see bombs being dropped on schools and civilian targets; entire nations are starving; genocide is being carried out before our very eyes. The security architecture has failed because nothing is self-evident," he said.  

Security in Slovenia can only be based on the community. "We are all the only guarantee of security. Neither outsiders nor insiders will take care of it if we do not take care of it ourselves. A community can only be safe when it stands in solidarity with those in need and does not abandon them," said the Prime Minister. 

"Security and community can only function if we ensure the dignity of everyone in need," he said, adding that this is precisely why long-term care is so important. He noted that, after 40 years of work, a pension should provide sufficient funds to cover care in residential homes, regardless of a person's state of health. 

"Unfortunately, when it comes to health, no one can decide alone. Yet we all deserve a dignified life and a dignified old age, and society must take responsibility for ensuring this. This is what long-term care is about. It is about the dignity of all of us when we reach old age and when our health fails us," Prime Minister Golob made clear. In the past, this depended on whether families could afford such care. The burden was on families, but today, part of it has been transferred to society and solidarity. 

"Security also means that if you, as a Slovenian, find yourself in circumstances of war abroad through no fault of your own, the State will come to your aid. At such times, the State does not ask how much it will cost or how it will be done. It acts with a single goal of bringing its people home safely," said the Prime Minister. He took the opportunity to thank everyone involved in the evacuation of Slovenian citizens, particularly Tanja Fajon, the Minister of Foreign and European Affairs; the embassies; and the field guides, as well as the covert and less covert services. "No one asked about the nationality or religion of those persons we were rescuing. No one asked which political party the person we were rescuing voted for. We all shared one objective: true solidarity. First, we take care of our own people," the Prime Minister said. He added that this repatriation, this return of Slovenians, will be remembered as a symbol of solidarity. 

"There is no world in which everyone can be satisfied with everything. What makes us different and better is our ability to live with these differences and use them to create something new and better. That is why it is worth continuing to fight, so that we do not surrender our freedom and security to someone with no good intentions towards either," the Prime Minister concluded.