Lojze Peterle

Alojz "Lojze" Peterle (born 5 July 1948) is a Slovenian politician. He was the leader of the Slovene Christian Democrats from the founding of the party in 1990 until it merged with the Slovenian People's Party in 2000. Between 1990 and 1992, he was the president of the first freely elected Slovenian government. He is a Member of the European Parliament.

Early life

Lojze Peterle was born to a peasant family in the Lower Carniolan village of Čužnja vas near Trebnje. He attended the Novo Mesto Grammar School. In 1967, he enrolled to the University of Ljubljana, where he studied history and geography, and later also economy. During his student years, he started collaborating with the Christian left intellectual circle around the journal Revija 2000.

In the 1980s, he started working at the Institute for Urban planning of the Socialist Republic of Slovenia. In the mid 1980s, he was involved in several projects of trans-regional cooperation within the Alpe-Adria regional cooperation network.