Page "Leibnitz" Paragraph 7

By 1 January 1968 the population of Leibnitz had reached 6, 641 but its relative importance and vitality had severely declined since Lower Styria had fallen to Yugoslavia in 1919 as a consequence of World War I, severing the city ’ s vital connections to the south and effectively making it all but a " dead-border township.

" From the 1970s onward, when it became easier for Yugoslav citizens to travel to Austria, Leibnitz started to experience a marked economic reinvigoration which gained momentum with the establishment of Slovenia as an independent state in 1991, and its entry into the European Union in 2004.