Slovenia’s new conservative-led government on Thursday lifted an arms embargo on Israel and entry bans on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and two of his ministers.
Last year, Slovenia, then under liberal prime minister Robert Golob, imposed a series of measures against Israel over the war with Hamas in Gaza.
Several other EU members have done the same.
But the government of Prime Minister Janez Jansa, which took office last week, overturned the bans against Netanyahu and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.
“This will restore the conditions for a normal political dialogue with Israel,” it said in a statement, adding the move would help “strengthen the role of the Republic of Slovenia in the efforts to achieve a lasting peace in the Middle East.”
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The country is also letting the arms embargo expire, considering the decree “unnecessary” given existing national defense laws and EU arms export criteria, it said.
The government of Jansa — an admirer of US President Donald Trump — also lifted a ban on imports from Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar welcomed Jansa’s “swift and just decision to lift the distorted anti-Israeli measures taken by Slovenia’s previous government,” calling him a “bold leader and a true friend of Israel.”
Last week, Israel announced it will open an embassy in Slovenia, marking what it hopes will be a new chapter in relations with the European country. The country’s embassy in Austrian capital Vienna has previously covered Israeli diplomatic interests in neighboring Slovenia.
Screen capture from video of the Palestinian flag flying over the Slovenian Presidential Palace, June 5, 2026. (Nataša Pirc Musar/X)
Since taking office, Jansa’s government has also removed a Palestinian flag symbolically displayed on the government building since Slovenia recognized Palestinian statehood in 2024.
Ties between Israel and Slovenia had soured under the previous government of Golob, which also characterized Israel’s military offensive against the Gaza-ruling Hamsa terror group as “genocide.”
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