Photo: Boštjan Podlogar/Slovenian press agency
The President of the Republic at the 60th DRAGA Study Days 2025: "The world I want to live in is a world in which the normal state is peace, not war"
The President of the Republic, Nataša Pirc Musar, attended the closing meeting of the 60th DRAGA study days 2025 in the Italian town of Opčine/Villa Opicina. In her speech, she stressed that the world can only be based on solidarity and sustainable development, where there will be no cause for mutual tensions and conflicts. "Sustainable development means sustainable development for all, not just for the privileged, so we must strive for development justice." However, speaking about sustainable development is meaningless when millions of people suffer from hunger and malnutrition, and millions of young people have no future," explicitly said the President.
Opčine, Italy, 14 Sept 2025
Following the initiative from the Trieste Association of Slovenian Intellectuals, a group of Slovenian intellectuals from abroad, Slovenia proper and expatriate communities gathered at a study meeting in the village of Draga near Bazovica/Basovizza for the first time in September 1966. he then president of the association, Jože Peterlin, noted in his welcoming address that the purpose of the meeting was to deepen mutual fraternal ties, to better understand each other and become more strongly integrated into their common national community. The need for dialogue and integration was also emphasised by the President of the Republic of Slovenia in her today's address: "Not only the fight for human dignity, but also ensuring dialogue is important today more than ever before. The world I want to live in is a world in which the normal state is peace, not war."
The President made it clear that "this peaceful world can only be based on solidarity and sustainable development, where there will be no cause for mutual tensions and conflicts. Sustainable development means sustainable development for all, not just for the privileged, so we must strive for development justice." However, speaking about sustainable development is meaningless when millions of people suffer from hunger and malnutrition, and millions of young people have no future. In a society in which a decent life for all is based on a sustainable, people- and nature-friendly economic and social orientation, developmental justice must have its logical place."
"Upholding values such as dignity and dialogue and implementing development justice must not be a distant vision or science fiction. Because what is happening around us, what we do, is not like us. The values I'm talking about are existential. Without a deeply ethical orientation of international community, we will not survive as Europe or as a civilisation," the President added.
