- Borut Pahor
Borut Pahor (born 2 November 1963) is a Slovenian politician and
Member of the European Parliament . He is the president of the Social Democrats (SD), which are part of theParty of European Socialists , and sits on theEuropean Parliament 's Committee on Budgetary Control and its Committee on Constitutional Affairs. He is also a substitute for the Committee on Foreign Affairs and vice-chair of the delegation to theEuropean Union –Croatia Joint Parliamentary Committee.Biography
Pahor was born in
Postojna , then part of theSocialist Republic of Slovenia of theformer Yugoslavia , but spent his childhood and youth in the town of Šempeter on the border withItaly . He frequented the high school inNova Gorica and in 1983 he enrolled to theUniversity of Ljubljana , where he studied public policy at the Faculty of Social Sciences. He graduated in 1987, and his B.A. thesis was awarded the Student Prešeren Award, the highest academic award for students in Slovenia.In his college years, Pahor joined the
Communist Party of Slovenia . He rose to prominence in the late1980s , when he became one of the strongest supporters of the reformist wing of the party, led byMilan Kučan . In the first free elections in Slovenia in April 1990, in which the Communists were defeated by theDEMOS coalition , Pahor was elected in theSlovenian Parliament on the list of theLeague of Communists - Party of Democratic Reform . He continued to advocate for a more reformist policy within the party. In 1997 he was elected as its president on a Third way-centrist platform.Between 2000 and 2004, he served as the chairman of the
Slovenian National Assembly (the lower house of the Slovenian parliament). In 2004, he was elected as member of the European Parliament. After 2007, his party became the second largest political force in Slovenia and Pahor became the non-formal leader of theleft wing opposition to the government led byJanez Janša . According to the preliminary results of the 2008 parliamentary election, Social Democrats have won the majority of votes and Pahor is expected to become the newPrime Minister of Slovenia . [cite web |url=http://www.rtvslo.si/modload.php?&c_mod=rnews&op=sections&func=read&c_menu=42&c_id=183196 |title=Izidi volitev: SD 30,50, SDS 29,33 % |date=2008-09-21 |accessdate=2008-09-21 |publisher=MMC RTV SLO |language=Slovene]Pahor is married and has one son. Beside Slovene, he is fluent in Italian, English and
Serbo-Croatian , and also speaks French.References
External links
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* [http://www.borutpahor.si/ Borut Pahor]
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