“A lot is happening in Slovenia; namely, very important elections will be held here next year, so it is high time to start competing with the programmes, concepts about how we plan to cooperate in order for Slovenia to progress faster,” Prime Minister Janez Janša emphasised at the regular session of the National Assembly. He believes that the opposition dealing with his old photographs is a waste of time. He pointed out that last year, the average salary in Slovenia increased by 5.4 percent, and in the first year of this government’s term in office, pensions increased by 7.7 percent. We have recorded the lowest unemployment rate since 2008. In addition, economic growth is forecast to be 2 percent higher than it was in last year’s autumn.
At the 25th regular session of the National Assembly, the LMŠ MP Robert Pavšič posed the first parliamentary question, intended for the Prime Minister Janez Janša. Pavšič pointed out that Prime Minister’s answers to his questions were a constitutional right of the public. He asked Janša about the morality of his actions. He said that Janša cannot be an advocate of second-class citizens while living the life of an elite. With this, he was, of course, hinting at the meetings in Mauritius and on Andrej Marčič’s boat. “Have you in any way helped any company do business with the state? Have you done anything to prevent your private association with lobbyists, tycoons and businessmen from being reflected in potential corruption or clientelism? In your opinion, is what you did and what was also documented, in any way morally or ethically questionable? Is what you are doing fair?” Pavšič asked the Prime Minister.
Janša first responded to the allegations that he was avoiding the invitations to participate in the commissions of inquiry. He said he is trying to confirm his attendance for Friday, but unfortunately, his calendar is full at the moment. “I have more European and international obligations in one week than your Prime Minister had in a whole year. So, I have to choose priorities here as well, and besides, telephones also exist in this country, so we could also agree on a date,” he explained. As for the other working bodies, such as the Public Finance Oversight Commission, he said that he does not recall any of the former Prime Ministers attending meetings of the working bodies at any time in the past. Regarding Pavšič’s attempt to preach him about morals, Janša pointed out that Pavšič is really not a person to whom Janša should explain who he can or cannot associate with privately. And to the specific question, he responded with: “No.” The Prime Minister remarked that the gentlemen who were once respected businessmen, have now – since appearing in a photo with him – apparently become tycoons. He then reiterated that no business deals had been concluded with him. In his life, Janša has spent a total of ten hours on yachts, of which half an hour was even spent on a sailboat with the former President Milan Kučan.
Why would anyone lobby someone who will have no power
The photographs that the media have been publishing recently are from the times when Janša still had the time to go on vacation, meaning, from the times when he was in the opposition – “And at the time when we were in the opposition, no one lobbied – they did not lobby, because they knew I am not the right target for it. Whenever we are in the opposition, your media outlets also write that the SDS party will never be part of a government again – so why would anyone lobby someone who has no power? So, you have to talk among yourselves and figure this situation out.” Janša also said that the coalition has submitted a law on a different method of public procurement, which would systematically prevent anything similar to the actions in the allegations being made by the opposition. If they really are as strongly opposed to corruption as they say, the Prime Minister hopes that they will also support this law. Thus, there will no longer be any theoretical basis for such discussions.
The SD party promises to build housing before every election
SD MP Marko Koprivc repeated the Prime Minister’s words, saying that the opposition is only opening up topics from the past, and then emphasised that this is not true. He showed a new bill on the promotion of the construction of public rental housing, which was submitted a few days ago – according to him, by the entire democratic opposition. He said that the question is whether the coalition will be able to accept this proposal or not. He then also emphasised that there is a housing crisis in Slovenia and that only the elite can afford housing. The law was supposedly created following the example of Vienna and would enable the construction of 10,000 rental apartments in the next six years. “I am asking whether you are willing to support this legal solution,” he asked the Prime Minister, noting that during the time of the Demos government, the entire public housing fund was sold out with Jazbinšek’s law. Miran Potrč from the SD party collected signatures for the amendment, and on that basis, the apartments were mainly donated – to those who lived in them. According to Janša, if the Jazbinšek law had been adopted, a huge fund would have been created for the construction of flats, from which we could still be drawing funds for the construction of new flats. He also reminded the MP that this promise to build housing always comes up before the elections – especially by the SD party. In the last five years of the SD party’s rule, 340 flats were built – so much about promises. In the next five years, the housing fund will put almost 4,000 rental apartments on the market, based on projects that are already underway. So, a lot more than the SD party has built in the last five years. Moreover, more than 1,500 flats will also be added by the municipal funds. And these are not just promises because it is already happening. According to Janša, it was also a mistake that most of the flats were being built in the city centres, while the countryside remained empty. “Fortunately, apartments are not being built only in Ljubljana now,” the Prime Minister pointed out.
If there are serious allegations being made, it would be good to provide some evidence as well
MP of the Levica party Luka Mesec said that he would not preach about morality, but he still feels that the Prime Minister owed the public an explanation regarding his contacts with the lobbyists. It seems to him that there were simply too many of these “random visits” for Janša to justify not reporting their contact to the Anti-Corruption Commission. “Can you say with complete certainty that your reports with these two men did not influence the policy of the SDS party in any way? If I look at the situation from a distance, I quickly start doubting in your story about the godfather from the background, Janez Zemljarič, who drew millions from Slovenian healthcare through his supply networks.” Thus, Mesec was interested in how Janša commented on the influence on Marčič and Božo Dimnik on the SDS policies throughout the years. The Prime Minister rešlied, saying that everyone can believe whatever they want, but it would be good to have some proof, especially if these are some serious allegations – in that case, it would be good to get some evidence, too, especially if this was information about how much business a company did with the state during a certain period, and how much it earned – namely, the companies mentioned in this story earned significantly more during the time of the left-wing governments. These are the facts. And regarding the tycoons, Janša added that it would be very unusual to lobby with them after they lobbied in the SD party, the LMŠ, LDS, and in Zares – that seems really unbelievable. “Wasn’t Mr. Borut Miklavčič even the Minister of Health in one of the left-wing governments? As far as I know, he is Mr. Dimnik’s best friend, not me,” said the Prime Minister. He responded to the rest of Mesec’s accusations with the words: “Whoever speaks about unconfirmed facts gets caught in their own trap sooner or later.” Janša then suggested that everyone votes in favour of passing the law, to vore for what Dr Marko Noč proposed and what everyone agrees will be better.
The bills to save Slovenia, charged by Alenka Bratušek, are only starting to come now
NSi MP Jožef Horvat asked Janša about the consequences of actions of the government of the former Prime Minister Alenka Bratušek during the time of the bank rehabilitation. Right now, Slovenia has low unemployment, high economic growth, a stable international financial position in the financial markets, and billions of euros in grants for investments under the Recovery and Resilience Fund. We can do a lot of things we have not done before now. However, this also comes with certain risks, one of which is that all of the skeletons will fall out of our closets. The verdict does not require the state to reimburse directly, but it clearly states that the decision was illegal. So sooner or later, there will be some bills to pay – there might be a settlement, we might pay half of the amount, or we may pay more. “If the subordinates get a refund based on this verdict, then practically all of this money will have to be allocated to the recovery from the time when Mrs. Bratušek was saving Slovenia from the trio. And instead of borrowing money cheaply, practically interest-free from the European Bank Rescue Fund at the time, she expropriated the subordinates and put the entire debt for the rehabilitation of banks on Slovenian taxpayers. At the same time, she also included two additional tycoon banks in this rehabilitation package – Faktor bank and Probanka bank, and we actually paid them hundreds of millions of euros and are still paying them. This was the rescuing of Slovenia at the time, for which the bills just keep on coming – even now,” the Prime Minister explained and was surprised at the fact that with all of this, the main headline in the media was his old photograph we have already seen before.
Sara Bertoncelj
