Interview with Dr. Peter Wostner, The Institute for Macroeconomic Analysis and Development
Why resilience, innovation, trust, and human capital will determine Slovenia’s future in an age of demographic and technological change
Text by Vanja Kavčić
He is a kind of modern prophet in a suit, with the brilliant mind of a scientist, who preaches from the mountaintop. And thank God, there are many mountains in Slovenia. He inspires, motivates, and he holds his audience’s attention. He says:
“Hey guys (and women), there is science behind what I am saying. We absolutely, without further delay, need to change this, and that, and that too, otherwise we are …
or …
We will also be much better off if we…
He speaks, points out, highlights … But is he being heard? Are we in Slovenia, Europe and the world already on the point of no return, ignorant and naïve that it is going to work out somehow …
Internationalis has for years followed the work of this amazing human being, a macroeconomic analyst at Slovenia’s Institute of Macroeconomic Analysis and Development (UMAR), an “interpreter of data” that can save us, an expert and one-of-a-kind Slovenian public speaker. We are thrilled to share with you our conversation as Slovenia approaches the holiday season after so many changes that marked the Spring and early summer of 2026.
“The greatest threat to Slovenia’s future is not a lack of quality of life today, but insufficient investment in the capabilities that will sustain it tomorrow.”
The latest UMAR Development Report paints an interesting picture: Slovenia enjoys a high quality of life, yet faces growing challenges related to demographics, productivity and global uncertainty. Which of these challenges do you believe will most strongly shape Slovenia’s future over the next decade?
The most important challenge will not be any single trend in isolation, but Slovenia’s ability to manage their intersection. Demographic ageing is the underlying structural force: it will reduce the growth potential of the labour force, increase pressure on social systems and make the traditional sources of growth less reliable. At the same time, global uncertainty, technological change and the green transition will demand much greater adaptability from firms, institutions and society as a whole. Countries that are able to connect these trends into a coherent development strategy will move ahead; those that treat them as separate problems risk stagnation. Technically speaking, productivity will be the decisive variable. With employment already high and the working-age population shrinking, Slovenia can no longer rely primarily on more labour to generate growth. It will have to generate more value from the people, knowledge, and resources it already has. Digitalisation, automation and artificial intelligence are therefore not optional technological upgrades, but essential tools for sustaining prosperity. If Slovenia uses them to accelerate productivity growth, strengthen innovation and upgrade business models, demographic pressures can be transformed from a constraint into an incentive for a more advanced economy whose future prosperity rests increasingly on innovation, creativity and the ability to generate new value.
The theme of the Summer issue of Internationalis is Resilience. From your perspective, what distinguishes a resilient society from one that simply manages to cope with crises as they arise?
A resilient society is distinguished by its ability to understand that the context in which it operates has fundamentally changed. Resilience is therefore not merely the capacity to respond when a crisis occurs, or to restore the previous state as quickly as possible. That is coping. True resilience means anticipating change, recognising the deeper transformations behind individual shocks, and building the capacity to adapt before pressures turn into crises. In today’s environment, this requires a much more strategic approach to demographic change, technological transformation, climate pressures, geopolitical uncertainty and shifts in global competitiveness. What matters most is the capacity to manage these transitions deliberately and coherently — at the national, regional, local, corporate and individual levels. A resilient society has institutions, companies and citizens that are willing to adapt, learn and engage, but also a shared sense of direction that allows their efforts to reinforce one another. Without such alignment, even well-intentioned initiatives remain fragmented. With it, however, resilience becomes more than defensive strength: it becomes a development capability, enabling a society not only to absorb shocks, but to use disruption as a catalyst for renewal, innovation and higher long-term quality of life.
“A resilient society is distinguished by its ability to understand that the context in which it operates has fundamentally changed.”
Your work often highlights the importance of innovation, creativity and human capital. In an era increasingly defined by artificial intelligence and automation, which human qualities will become more valuable rather than less?
Technical and digital skills are increasingly becoming a basic prerequisite for participation in modern society and the economy. As artificial intelligence and automation spread across sectors, the ability to understand and use digital tools will be expected in much the same way as basic literacy was expected in the past. However, these skills alone will not be the main differentiating factor. What will become more valuable are the distinctly human capabilities that enable people to deal with complexity: adaptability, creativity, systems thinking, curiosity, the willingness to learn continuously, and the capacity to collaborate across disciplines, organisations and cultures. These capabilities can and should be complemented by digital tools. Those who are able to combine the strengths of both worlds — human and machine — will be best positioned to succeed. This is particularly important for countries such as Slovenia, which are trying to move from efficiency-driven growth, where success depends largely on implementation, towards innovation-driven growth, where success depends increasingly on creation. The Development Report shows that Slovenia’s challenge is not only to upgrade human capabilities, although that is clearly necessary, but also to put them to better use. Creativity, knowledge and talent generate value only when firms and institutions have the ambition, organisational culture and executional capacity to transform them into new products, services, business models and solutions. This is why transformational engagement and the ability to implement change — especially at the corporate level — will be among the most important human and organisational qualities of the next decade.
Slovenia consistently ranks among the better-performing countries in terms of quality of life, yet public discourse often focuses on what is not working. How important are trust, optimism and a shared vision for a country’s long-term development and resilience?
Trust is the connecting tissue that makes change, transformation and collective action possible. A society may have good strategies, sound analysis and even sufficient resources, but if people do not believe that institutions and leaders are capable of making tomorrow better, they will be much less willing to engage, take risks or accept the adjustments that long-term development requires. Optimism in this sense is not naïve positivity; it is a practical development asset. It gives individuals, firms and institutions the confidence that change is worth the effort, and that short-term costs can lead to broader long-term gains.
The Slovenian situation is mixed. On the positive side, employees generally appear to place relatively high trust in company management, which is encouraging because much of the innovation and productivity transformation must happen within firms. The more difficult part is that trust in national-level institutions, particularly politics, remains worryingly low. This is problematic because the transitions ahead cannot be delivered by companies alone, nor by the state alone. We need both. Despite political differences and social polarisation, Slovenia will therefore have to find a common denominator on key national priorities — above all human capital, innovation, digital transformation and demographic adaptation. Without such a shared direction, change will remain fragmented; with it, trust and optimism can become powerful sources of resilience.
You once described your sons and the younger generation as your “north star”. As someone who professionally analyses long-term societal trends, what do younger generations understand about the future — and perhaps about resilience itself — that older generations sometimes fail to see?
Each generation tends to interpret the world through the context in which it grew up. This is understandable, but it also makes it more difficult for older generations — including my own — to fully understand younger people, especially at a time when the pace of change is unprecedented. Young people are different: they learn, communicate, interact and form expectations through tools and environments that did not exist when we were growing up. Some of their expectations may indeed appear unrealistic. But objectively speaking, they are also far more informed, globally connected and technologically fluent than we were at the same age. In many areas, including sustainability, openness and the search for purpose, their values are a generation ahead of ours.
What they perhaps understand better is that resilience cannot mean preserving the world as it is. It has to mean preparing for a different one. The challenge is that there is also a gap between generations in finding a common direction: not only in terms of priorities and language, but also in terms of purpose and fairness. In an ageing society, with political systems in which older generations carry increasing electoral weight, intergenerational fairness will have to receive more attention. If young people are to remain our “north star”, then resilience must include their future interests in today’s decisions — in education, housing, climate policy, public finances and the organisation of work. Otherwise, we risk asking them to adapt to a future they had too little influence in shaping — and weakening precisely the resilience we claim to be building.
Despite political differences and social polarisation, Slovenia will therefore have to find a common denominator on key national priorities — above all, human capital, innovation, digital transformation, and demographic adaptation. Without such a shared direction, change will remain fragmented; with it, trust and optimism can become powerful sources of resilience.
Peter Wostner
