The meeting between the College of Commissioners and the Slovenian government on Thursday 1 July was marked by tensions over the Rule of law.
During the debate, Prime Minister Janez Janša showed a photo of S&D MEPs with judges, implying that they are politicised. According to him, members of the high court campaign politically on Sunday and then on Monday deliver their judgements ‘independently’, which “just by coincidence” send people from outside their political spectrum to prison.
While the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, was quoted by Politico as saying that judges were allowed to have personal views that did not necessarily influence their judgements, S&D member Timmermans refused to appear in the family photo in retaliation.
“I simply could not be on the same podium as Prime Minister Janša after his unacceptable attack and defamation of two judges and two S&D MEPs. He questioned their integrity because they were judges and MEPs (...) because they were in the same photo”, he explained. He noted that judicial independence and respect for the role of elected MEPs were the cornerstones of the Rule of law, without which the EU could not function. He concluded: “We can never stop denouncing those who attack it.” According to the Commission spokesperson, Ms von der Leyen respects Mr Timmermans’ decision.
Asked about Timmermans’ absence from the photo, Janša told journalists in Brussels that he had only become aware of it afterwards. He confirmed that the Vice-President was upset about the debate on the independence of the judiciary. “I just wanted to explain the situation. If you don’t like the truth, that’s a problem for you, not for the truth”, he added.
“We have no problem with anyone checking anything: the Rule of law, press freedom, media funding”, explained the Prime Minister, calling for an end to making assessments on biased information.
“We are not a colony, not a second-class Member State, we must have the same treatment” as other Member States, warned Mr Janša. He complained that the Commission’s letters to some Member States are first published in the media before they reach the capitals.
Interior Minister Aleš Hojs, asked about a demonstration against the government, explained that he would not call anyone a “swine”, but that after what he had heard the day before, he could use it to refer to someone who held “a high position in the EU bureaucracy”. After the meeting, the minister denied on Twitter that he had meant Mr Timmermans.
Mr Janša again spoke about the politicisation and/or non-independence of judges and journalists in his country, showing the video he had been unable to show at a hearing in the European Parliament on 26 March (see EUROPE 12687/1). While he said that it was not a problem for a journalist to become a politician - a path he himself had followed - he explained that it was bad when it happened only in one part of the political spectrum, implying the left.
He repeatedly called on journalists to check the facts about the situation in his country. “We know who your sources are”, he added.
Furthermore, when asked about Hungary’s so-called anti-LGBTI law, the Prime Minister explained that “the EU (was) not a union without Central Europe”. He warned against double standards, which could lead to the collapse of the EU.
Mr Janša also rejected the difference between illiberal and liberal democracies. “Democracy is democracy”, he explained. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)