Tanja Fajon

Tanja Anna Fajon (born 9 May 1971) is a Slovenian politician who has served as Minister of Foreign and European Affairs since June 2022. A member of the Social Democrats, she led the party from 2020 to 2024. Fajon was a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for Slovenia until 2022, having been elected in 2009, 2014, and 2019.

Born in Ljubljana, Fajon attended the Poljane Grammar School and studied journalism at the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana, later earning a master’s degree in international politics at Paris-Sud University. Before entering politics, she worked as a journalist at Radio Glas Ljubljana and the newspaper Republika, and from 1996 at RTV Slovenia. She spent eight years as RTV Slovenia’s Brussels correspondent, closely covering Slovenia’s accession to the European Union in 2004 and the early years of its EU membership.

As an MEP, Fajon led the Slovenian delegation within the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D). She played a pivotal role as rapporteur on visa liberalisation for the Western Balkans and served as Vice-Chair of the S&D from 2014 to 2019 during her third term. She is the only Slovenian to be named twice among the 40 most influential MEPs by Politico Europe.

Following the 2022 parliamentary election, Fajon was briefly elected as a member of the National Assembly before joining the 15th Government of Slovenia led by Prime Minister Robert Golob. As party leader during the government’s formation, she personally chose to serve as Minister of Foreign and European Affairs.

Born in Ljubljana on 9 May 1971, Tanja Fajon is the daughter of Nevenka “Neva” Fajon (1943–2021), a renowned Slovenian film editor who worked on the Oscar-nominated film When I Close My Eyes (1993) and at RTV Slovenia, and Bogdan Fajon, a journalist and editor also employed at RTV Slovenia. She has an older brother, Sašo Fajon, a composer and musician known for co-writing Prisluhni mi, which represented Slovenia at the Eurovision Song Contest in 1995; he suffered a heart attack in 2016.

After completing Poljane Grammar School in 1990, Fajon earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana in 1996. While working at RTV Slovenia, she completed a master’s degree in International Politics at the College of Interdisciplinary Studies, Paris-Sud University in 2005. She later undertook a graduate course in management at the IEDC-Bled School of Management until 2016.

Fajon began her journalism career as a journalist and assistant editor at Radio Glas Ljubljana from 1991 to 1995. In 1993, she also worked as a reporter and writer for the Slovenian daily newspaper Republika. From 1996 to 2001, she was a local journalist at RTV Slovenia, before becoming a correspondent for RTV Slovenia in Brussels, a role she held from 2001 to 2009, closely following Slovenia’s accession to the European Union in 2004. During this period, she also contributed as a reporter for CNN from 1995 to 2001.

In the 2009 European Parliament elections in Slovenia, Fajon was elected as a member of the Social Democrats (SD). During her first term, she served as vice-chairwoman of the European Parliament delegation for Croatia until the country joined the European Union. She was also a member of the Committee on Organised Crime, Corruption and Money Laundering (CRIM), Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE), and the Delegation for relations with the United States.