On 30 September 2020, the European Commission published its first report on the rule of law in the EU (see EUROPE 12571/5). For Slovenia, the report pointed out insufficient resources for the Constitutional Court, the Judicial Council, the Council of Public Prosecutors, the Commission for the Prevention of Corruption and the Agency of Communication Networks and Services. According to Eurobarometer, 77% of Slovenians consider that the government is not making sufficiently effective measures to tackle corruption. The report also states that “online harassment or threats against journalists are frequent and rarely sanctioned by the justice system”. Other member states came in for tougher treatment.
November shed even more light on the situation. Having publicly supported Donald Trump, Janša was the only European leader not to recognise the election defeat of his hero (could the fact that Trump’s wife is Slovenian have clouded his judgement?) (see EUROPE 12598/2). Then things got even more serious: he joined in with Hungary and Poland in their blackmail, vetoing the multi-annual financial framework 2021-2027 and the Recovery Plan unless the regulation on the conditionality of the rule of law was withdrawn (see EUROPE 12604/3); he later thought better of this. In December, the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe called upon the Slovenian Prime Minister to review his decision to suspend the funding of the national press agency, the STA. The media war rumbled on.
Would 2021 see any improvement in the situation? Alas, it has seen quite the reverse. On 5 March, a group of MEPs held a hearing of journalists and representatives of Slovenian civil society, who decried the fact that public money is being channelled into parallel media sources spreading the regime’s propaganda (see EUROPE 12672/6). On the 26th of the same month, Janša was the EP’s guest, through the wonders of videoconferencing. The subject on the agenda was the freedom of the media in Slovenia. He was expected to make a statement on the situation, to be followed by a question-and-answer session. He came on screen against a background of photographs of demonstrators calling for his resignation. He said a few words, then insisted on being allowed to spend the rest of his allocated speaking time showing a video proving the scale of the left-wing plot against him. The president of the session refused, for technical and linguistic reasons. Janša hung up without having taken a single question from the MEPs. This clash was quite unprecedented (see EUROPE 12687/1).
When lockdown ended, thousands of Slovenians took to the streets of the capital on 17 April to protest. More and more disturbing reports were forthcoming. The Amnesty International 2020/21 slammed the treatment of asylum seekers, the management of the pandemic to the detriment of the elderly, arrests and enormous fines handed down to protesters. Reporters sans frontières downgraded Slovenia in terms of the freedom of the media. The most exhaustive report was published on 4 June by the Council of Europe and written by the Commissioner for Human Rights, Dunja Mijatović, on the basis of a thorough investigation and including comments by the government. The report formally calls upon the authorities to halt the worsening situation of the freedom of expression and the freedom of the media (see EUROPE 12734/26). The report laid particular emphasis on the misogynist harassment of female journalists, acts of hostility towards public service media, intimidation and criminal procedures targeting the press and the stigmatisation of civil society activities.
The composition of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office is, moreover, a manifest embarrassment to the head of government. The fruit of enhanced cooperation, which Slovenia joined in early 2017 before Janša was in power, the Office still has no Slovenian delegate public prosecutor, although its activities are now up and running. The Minister for Justice put forward names on two occasions, but in vain, and therefore resigned on 27 May. In early June, the Commission asked for a written explanation of the reasons for the failed appointment procedure and the feasibility of a new, fully transparent procedure (see EUROPE 12735/5). Just a few days ago, on 24 June, the European Parliament roundly criticised the Slovenian government for this systematic blocking tactic (see EUROPE 12748/17), and on the same day, over at the European Council, all the leaders condemned Viktor Orbán for his LGBTI law bill – all, that is, but for Poland and Slovenia (see EUROPE 12748/1).
Slovenian society has become extremely polarised and there is no longer any balance in the public debate. The government’s parliamentary base is crumbling; it narrowly avoided a motion of censure on 26 May. Two days later, 40,000 people protested in the streets about the authoritarian tendencies of the regime and its corruption. This has hit Slovenia’s international image hard. The leader known as ‘Maréchal Twitto’ (100 tweets a day in March), now openly Eurosceptical, has taken a line unlikely to be conducive to any sort of useful collaboration with his European partners, even though Slovenia is to take over the Presidency of the Council of the EU on 1 July. On that day, according to a well-established tradition, the College of Commissioners will visit Ljubljana; it is to be hoped that it will not be a ritual of allegiance to a man who despises ‘Eurocrats’.
The four-page programme of the Slovenian Presidency, which is available on its website, is fairly general in tone and smacks of “the bare minimum”. Fortunately, on 10 June, the Slovenian ambassador to the EU’s developed an “ambitious agenda” (see EUROPE 12738/29), featuring plans for economic recovery, the future of the European Medicines Agency, the new Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority, the ‘Fit for 55’ climate package, tackling money laundering and terrorism, the digital fee, the future of the Schengen zone, and much more besides.
Romania’s forthcoming general elections are scheduled to be held in June 2022. It would be in the interests of the Janša government to present an impressive record, particularly concerning Europe: it would be encouraging to think that Slovenia will not blindly take its cues from Poland and Hungary when voting at the Council. As for the Slovenian parliament, it approved a law on 4 June which now recognises that sexual intercourse without consent is rape: a clear victory for women, and possibly also a symbolic forerunner of a more general move to a free modernity, amid so much backpedalling at the level of the authorities.
The Balkans region – a summit with the Western Balkan states will take place in Slovenia on 6 October – needs a political and moral model; Slovenia used to play this role and can resume it, but it will require a renewable of its European engagement, dossier by dossier.
Renaud Denuit