Original article (in Slovenian) was published on 5/1/2026; Author: Aljaž Primožič
Slovenia’s freedom of expression index has fluctuated over the past five years. Data from the Swedish V-Dem Institute shows that the 2024 index value was the second lowest in this period, the lowest having been recorded in 2021.
The Nova24TV portal ran an article on December 2 titled Slovenia’s Catastrophic Fall on the Freedom of Expression Index, claiming that “data for Slovenia is in a continuous decline” and that the country has “plunged to 81st place.”
The article cited data from the annual freedom of expression index, which is part of the global Democracy Report produced by the Varieties of Democracy Institute (V-Dem) at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden.
As explained in the V-Dem Institute’s methodology published last March, the freedom of expression index is a component of the Electoral Democracy Index. Much like the other four components – freedom of association, suffrage, clean elections, and elected officials – the freedom of expression index incorporates several indicators.
According to the description of these indicators, the index is composed of model-based point estimates for the censorship of print media and broadcasting, harassment of journalists, media self-censorship, freedom of discussion for men and women, and freedom of academic and cultural expression.
In a 2015 press release, the institute explained that the freedom of expression index measures the extent to which governments respect press and media freedom, the freedom of ordinary people to discuss political matters in private and public, and freedom of academic and cultural expression. The index value ranges from 0 to 1; the closer the value is to 1, the greater the freedom of expression, and vice versa.
Data available on the institute’s website shows that Slovenia’s index value has fluctuated over the last five years. In 2019, it stood at 0.92, then it declined in 2020 and 2021. In 2022, the value rose to 0.86, but it has been falling again since then.
Between 2019 and 2024, the index for Slovenia hit its lowest point in 2021, at 0.69. According to the data, this was also the second lowest value in the history of independent Slovenia. In 2024, the value was 0.73.
The Nova24TV article also included a screenshot of a map showing the 2024 freedom of expression index worldwide. This map was published by Our World in Data, which utilizes V-Dem Institute data. Our World in Data is a collaborative project between researchers at the University of Oxford and the non-profit Global Change Data Lab.
Based on the country rankings on that map, Slovenia ranked 81st out of 174 countries, sharing the position with the Maldives, Armenia, Peru, and Romania. If tied positions are not grouped, Slovenia ranks between 81st and 85th place.
In its Democracy Report 2025, published in March, the V-Dem Institute noted that Slovenia underwent a period of autocratization between 2015 and 2021, but recovered quickly by the end of 2022, when a left-liberal coalition took power.
However, the institute assessed that the current government has also begun to take an autocratic turn, with attempts to weaken the media and the opposition that have drawn protesters into the streets. Due to the deterioration of conditions in 2023 and 2024, Slovenia’s freedom of expression index moved closer to that of Slovakia, which has shown clear signs of autocratization.
We have informed the Nova24TV portal of our findings and will publish their response once we have received it. We categorize the headline of the Nova24TV article Slovenia’s Catastrophic Fall on the Freedom of Expression Index as a grey zone. The claim that the drop in the index is catastrophic is incorrect: the lowest value for freedom of expression in Slovenia over the last five years was actually recorded in 2021. However, the part of the claim stating that Slovenia experienced a decline is true. The index has been falling since 2022 and saw a further year-over-year decrease in 2024.
