SOME SPATIAL AND HISTORICAL ETHNIC-PROCES SES IN SLOVENIA

Integration into Europe is just around the corner for Slovenia since i ts international recognition in 1992. General human and particularly m inority rights were to be implemented, if they did not already exist. Due to immigration the ethnic structure of Slovenia changed dramatical ly in recent decades, as Slovenia was the most developed part of the f ormer multi-ethnic state of Yugoslavia and due to the Second World War . The autochthonous ethnic groups, the Italians and Hungarians, enjoy protection well above the standards Europe accepted as desirable. Due to immigration and despite protection measures, the importance of thes e minorities became smaller in the course of time. New developments, l ike the border towards Croatia established in Istria and the planned ' 'Sun-Belt Route'', might increasingly threaten the existence of both m inorities. More than 200000 ''economic immigrants'' from territories o f former Yugoslavia as well as the autochthonous, but smaller and disp ersed German-speaking ethnic group have no minority protection. The Sl ovenians' national pride keeps growing since the country's becoming an independent state. Ethnic discord threatens - occasionally and spatia lly limited, though - to endanger the existing general harmony between the majority and the minorities.