Anton Rop

Anton Rop (born 27 December, 1960) is a Slovenian politician. He is currently a member of the National Assembly of Slovenia. He was the fourth Prime Minister of Slovenia, from 2002 to 2004. Until 2005 he was also the president of the Liberal Democratic Party (Liberalna Demokracija Slovenije - LDS), the legal successor of the Slovenian Association of Socialist Youth. On March 20, 2007, he left the party and joined the Social Democrats.

Rop was born in Ljubljana. He graduated from the Faculty of Economics in Ljubljana in 1984. In 1991, he was admitted to the master's degree in economics, with a thesis on state expenditure and economic growth. From 1985 to 1992 he was Assistant Director of the Slovenian Institute for Macroeconomic Analysis and Development, where he also headed working groups for the projects of fiscal informatics and investments in economic infrastructure and tackled Slovenia's developmental problems. He has written numerous articles about investment, market and housing topics. In his capacity as assistant director of the Institute and advisor to the government he started working in the field of privatisation and legislation as early as 1992.

In 1993 he was appointed State Secretary at the Ministry of Economic Relations and Development, charged with privatisation and regional development. He managed system solutions in ownership transformation and the privatisation process in Slovenia. Between 1996 and 2000 he held the office of Minister of Labour, Family and Social Affairs.

Following elections to the National Assembly at the end of 2000 he was appointed minister of finance. He performed this function until December 19, 2002 when he was elected prime minister. He came into conflict with President Janez Drnovšek, though they are from the same party. His government lost the October 2004 elections, and he relinquished the post of Prime Minister on November 9 2004 when Janez Janša was elected.

External links

* [http://www.upv-rs.si/index_eng.php Official Website to The Prime Minister of the Slovenia Republic]