The holiday marks 25 June 1991, when the Slovenian Assembly passed the Basic Constitutional Charter and the Declaration of Independence.

The documents were passed on the basis of a plebiscite held in December 1990 in which 88.2% of all voters opted for a break from the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

However, the first major step towards independence was the multi-party elections in April 1990, which were won by a coalition of newly-emerged parties associated in the DEMOS coalition.

Three months after the elections, DEMOS adopted a declaration of Slovenia's sovereignty which envisaged the adoption of a Constitution within a year.

Independence, however, was officially declared at a 25 June 1991 ceremony in the square in front of the parliament building. Just hours later, the new state was attacked by the Yugoslav People's Army.

This was the outset of a brief war for independence which ended on 7 July 1991 when Slovenia pledged in an EU-brokered declaration to suspend its independence efforts for three months.

When the moratorium expired in October 1991, the Yugoslav troops left Slovenia and the country introduced its own currency.

The first country to recognise Slovenia was its southern neighbour Croatia (26 June 1991), which declared independence on the same day as Slovenia.

The Vatican recognised the country on 13 January 1992 and the European Community followed two days later. The country became a full-fledged UN member in May 1992 and joined the EU and NATO in 2004.

Several local ceremonies are scheduled to be hold today to mark the holiday. The main state ceremony was held on Friday.