Milan Zver

Life and career

Zver was born in Ljubljana, FPR Yugoslavia, but spent most of his childhood in the village of Destrnik in the eastern Slovenian region of Styria. After finishing high school in Ptuj, he enrolled in the University of Ljubljana, where he studied sociology and political science at the Faculty of Social Sciences. He graduated in 1987 and continued his studies at the University of Graz under the supervision of the scholar Horst Haselsteiner. He obtained his MA in 1990, but in 1992 he left the research work at the university and decided to undertake public service in Slovenia instead. A member of Slovenian Social Democratic Party since 1990, Zver served as advisor to the Deputy Prime Minister Jože Pučnik and later to the Minister of Defence Janez Janša. After the Social Democratic Party left Janez Drnovšek's coalition government in 1994, Zver served as a secretary of the Municipal Council of Ljubljana until 1999, and later as an advisor to the parliamentary group of the Slovenian Social Democratic Party (now known as the Slovenian Democratic Party) in the National Assembly of Slovenia. From 2002 to 2004, he served as member of the Municipal Council of Ljubljana.

In 1998, Zver obtained his PhD at the University of Ljubljana under the supervision of historian Janko Prunk. The same year, he started teaching sociology at the University of Maribor. He has written several articles and monographs in political analysis and history of political thought.

In the 2004 parliamentary elections, Zver was elected to the Slovenian National Assembly. He left the Parliament shortly afterward in order to serve as the Minister of Education and Sports in the centre-right government led by Janez Janša. Until 2007, he also served as the chairman of the commission for the improvement of the conditions of the Romani community in Slovenia.

As the Minister of Sports, he attended the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics as the representative for Slovenia.

Recent activities

After the victory of the left-wing coalition led by Borut Pahor in the 2008 parliamentary elections, Zver was replaced by Igor Lukšič as Minister of Education of Sports.

In 2009, he was chosen to head the Slovenian Democratic Party's list of candidates to the European Parliament. The list obtained the highest procentage of votes in Slovenia, while Zver received the highest number of preferential votes in the country, resulting in the election to the European Parliament.

Zver has been member of several executive bodies of the Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS) since 1992, at first as an adviser and subsequently as a member. He is currently vice president of the party. He has also been active on the international political scene, mostly within the European People's Party and in conservative think tanks such as the International Republican Institute and the Konrad Adenauer Foundation.

He is a signatory of the Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism.

Private life

Zver is married and has two daughters. His daughter Manca Zver is a famous model and TV host. Zver is also an amateur football player. Besides Slovene, he is fluent in English, German and Serbo-Croatian. He has been married twice. His current wife is the Slovenian historian Andreja Valič Zver.