“If there is not enough loot, it has to be shared. Which is why the future Prime Minister is inventing new ministries without an actual in-depth discussion. If need be, he will come up with even more. Ministry of Intergenerational Cooperation – what is that? Is it intended for retirees? For demographics? For families? Without a portfolio or with a budget? If the Left party (Levica) would have also not gotten into parliament, Golob would have probably added the Ministry of Solar Administration to the four other new ministries. In any case, we have probably never seen a case in the history of our country where the government was being formed by parties that did not get into the National Assembly,” journalist and editor Tino Mamić commented on the staffing decisions of Robert Golob.
Slovenia currently has 14 ministries and three ministries without a portfolio, but the President of the Freedom Movement party (Gibanje Svoboda) and future Prime Minister Dr Robert Golob recently announced that he intends to add four more departments related to the areas of climate policy, intergenerational solidarity, digitalisation and regional development. According to him, they want to strengthen the areas in question in order to help manage the times of crisis that are coming. However, it appears that in actuality, Golob only wants four new ministries so he can offer positions to the “apostates” who did not get enough votes in the elections to get into parliament.
Thus, the former Prime Minister Marjan Šarec is expected to take over the Ministry of Regional Development, even though it was previously said he is a candidate for the position of Minister of Defence, and Alenka Bratušek is expected to take over the Ministry of Intergenerational Solidarity, although perhaps Ljubo Jasnič, who argued with Bratušek about which of their parties has done more good for the retirees at the pre-election debates, might be a better choice. However, it is also true that we do not even know what the Ministry of Intergenerational Solidarity really is, so it is difficult to judge who might be the more appropriate person to run it. Let us remind you (this is a good reminder for Golob as well) that right after the elections, the President of the Freedom Movement emphasised that they are open to the idea of staffing according to the criteria of professionalism, but not political staffing. Whether Šarec and Bratušek actually meet this criterion is for everyone to decide for themselves. By the way, it is not yet known will take over the regulation of tides with the climate department.
New ministries for politicians that the people said “no” to at the elections
We asked the Vice-Dena of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts, Boštjan M. Turk, whether the four new ministries will bring some added value to Slovenia. In his opinion, there is a very clear and simple answer to this question. Given that the government of Robert Golob will not bring any added value to Slovenia, the four additional ministries will also not contribute anything. “This is just about hiring the politicians that the people said “no” to at the elections, and now they are coming back to the forefront through the side door,” Turk assessed, who said this is very bad. But obviously, the Slovenian voters have not matured enough yet to be able to understand what a state is and what state governance really means. “So it seems that given Golob’s election result – the correctness of which is questionable – the future Prime Minister can do whatever he wants,” Turk commented, adding that this is, of course, to the detriment of the Republic of Slovenia.
Namely, four new ministries mean additional bureaucratisation of the state administration, which is a step in a completely inappropriate direction for the current times. “We are living in a very critical time, and the current “infrastructure,” meaning the number of ministries, ministers, officials, laws, and other bureaucratic entities, is high enough already for us to be able to appropriately deal with the crisis and respond to the challenges that are coming,” Turk said, who reiterated that the current time is incredibly demanding, as we woke up from the epidemic to a war, which, among other things, is also very obvious in the inflation of the euro area. “And this recruitment of people, politicians who have lost their jobs, in this way, is a very inappropriate response to the challenge of the times,” the professor from the Faculty of Arts was critical.
They will take money from the pensioners, workers, …
There was a lot of outrage in public at the expense of Golob’s choice of staff. “Golob will ‘strengthen’ the Ministry of the Economy with a new Ministry of Regional Development, which will replace the Directorate for Regional Development,” commented one Twitter user, who also added the CV of Šarec and the acting Director of the Directorate for Regional Development, Dr Robert Drobnič, for comparison. It is also clear from Golob’s statements that the additional ministries are only intended for hiring the unelected staff and sucking even more money from the budget, even though he himself admitted that he did not expect his party would win 41 seats and that he does not have the staff for it. Intellectual and former minister Žiga Turk also commented on this news on Twitter, writing: “The cost of salaries of employees at the new ministries is not the problem. The problem is that these ministries then have to justify their existence. And then they search for things to regulate, things to report on, or things that could be financed from our taxes. And that costs hundreds of thousands of euros more.” Other people on social media wondered: “How many apartments, homes for the elderly and free holidays for children could Slovenia get instead of this?” but of course, they never got an answer. Perhaps we should introduce an additional tax for those who chose this option in the elections, this new face – after all, they would probably be happy to pay more, as long as it is not Janez Janša, and they would not spend this money on nonsense.
Sara Bertoncelj
