Zoran Thaler
Zoran Thaler (born 21 January 1962 ) is a Slovenian politician and businessman. He is a former Slovenian Foreign Minister and a former Member of European Parliament.
He was born in Kranj in former Yugoslavia (now in Slovenia). He graduated from political science at the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Ljubljana. He started his political career in the Alliance of the Socialist Youth of Slovenia (ZSMS), the largely autonomous youth and student organisation, many times in opposition to the League of Communists of Slovenia.
In the first free elections in Slovenia, he was elected to the Slovenian Parliament as member of the Alliance of the Socialist Youth of Slovenia – Liberal Party (later renamed to Liberal Democratic Party) and became Deputy Foreign Minister (1990–1993) in first democratic Government of Slovenia ruled by the DEMOS coalition. He was re-elected to the Parliament in 1992 and 1996 on the list of the ruling Liberal Democracy of Slovenia. Between 1993 and 1995, he served as Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the Parliament.
In January 1995, he was nominated Minister of Foreign Affairs of Slovenia in the government of Janez Drnovšek, after Lojze Peterle of the Slovene Christian Democrats had resigned. Thaler's term in office was marked by tensions with neighbouring Italy, which had already begun in the previous years. The disagreements between the two countries were mostly centered around the issue of property restitution to Italian refugees from Yugoslavia from the late 1940s. Thaler was involved in several negotiations with the Italian Foreign Minister Susanna Agnelli, in which he unblocked the Italian veto to Slovenia's access to the European Union. The Italian counterpart demanded that Slovenia changed its constitutional provisions which prevented foreign citizens to acquire real estates in Slovenia. In 1996, Slovenia agreed to the so-called "Spanish compromise", in which Slovenia promised to liberalize its property market regulations, allowing Italian and other EU citizens to purchase real estate in Slovenia. This resulted in the unblock of the Italian veto to Slovenia's access to the European Union. The deal made possible that Slovenia signed The Association Agreement with the EU on 10 June 1996 in Luxembourg and formally applied for full membership in the EU the same day.
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