MINISTER MATEJ TONIN

Matej Tonin, M. Sc. was born on July 30, 1983 in Ljubljana and comes from Zgornji Tuhinj. After finishing elementary and grammar school in Kamnik, he studied Political Science at the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana where he earned his Master’s Degree in 2010 with the thesis on Slovenia’s independence and its economic effects.

He has been active in politics since 2001 when he joined the NSi at the municipal level in Kamnik. In 2006, 2010 and 2014 local elections, he was elected to the Kamnik Municipal Council. In 2007, he started working in the NSi Parliamentary Group as a PR advisor. In November 2008, he decided to start his own business and founded the company Vizija that engaged in video production and created an online local newspaper. He led the company until 2011 when he was elected Member of the National Assembly at the early parliamentary election. In 2014, he was again elected to the National Assembly and in both terms, he was appointed Leader of the NSi Parliamentary Group. In 2018, he took over party’s leadership. In the same year, he was re-elected Member of the National Assembly. At the constituent session of the National Assembly, he was elected President of the National Assembly of the Republic of Slovenia. After a minority government was formed, he assumed the leadership of the Commission for the Supervision of Intelligence and Security Services. Since 2011, he has been a member of the Committee on the Defence in the National Assembly, and since 2012 a member of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, where he is especially active in the Science and Technology Committee. He has been three times appointed rapporteur to the Parliamentary Assembly. To its members, he presented a report on the use and importance of artificial intelligence in the armed forces, on the “dark web” and the dangers and challenges that connected smart devices pose to networks.

Matej Tonin, M. Sc. is married and has three children. He enjoys spending his free moments with the family and likes to play recreational hockey and basketball. He summarized his vision for the development of Slovenia in the book Hope for Slovenia which also lays down the agenda of his political work.