Whether or not Marta Kos will actually become European Commissioner is still not clear – the media outlet Politico mentioned her as one of the five candidates who could fail to pass the hearings. But if she does become Commissioner, diplomat Marko Makovec is expected to become her chief of staff. The Slovenian public got to know him better a few years ago after the scandal that took his ambassadorship in Zagreb.
Namely, Marko Makovec was practically already sitting on the comfortable armchair of an ambassador in Zagreb, but his undiplomatic moves took the post away from him. We were the first to write about this on our web portal. At the time, Makovec was so sure that he would become ambassador that his Facebook friends congratulated him on his appointment even before the information was made public. Dejan Steinbuch, editor-in-chief of the media outlet Portal Plus, was surprised by Makovec’s response at the time, who thanked his friends for the congratulations, which suggests that the appointment process may not have been transparent, as the process had not yet been completed at the time.
And now, we are also revealing that Makovec’s name even appeared in the published WikiLeaks dispatches.
A non-transparent appointment process of an ambassador in the Šarec government?
It all started with a simple congratulatory message to Slovenian diplomat Makovec on his appointment as Croatian ambassador in Zagreb, which his friends posted on Facebook. Makovec was already under scrutiny for some time by then, having previously served as foreign policy advisor to President Borut Pahor, before taking up the post of Ambassador at the Permanent Representation of Slovenia to the European Union in Brussels, where he is accredited at the Political and Security Committee.
In the chaos that supposedly reigned at Cerar’s foreign ministry, where, according to Portal Plus, employees were missing any real leadership, President Pahor seized the opportunity. Makovec would thus be Pahor’s man in Zagreb, giving the President a better insight into relations between Ljubljana and Zagreb. The last ambassador, Smiljana Knez, was not up to the challenges of Slovenia’s most important diplomatic mission.
Makovec threatened the free media
However, the problem arose when the foreign ministry announced that the selection process for Slovenia’s ambassador to Zagreb had not been finalised yet, so the records of the appointment to the post were a clear indication of the non-transparency of the process or the agreed appointment. The problem also arose because Makovec thanked all those who congratulated him on his appointment.
As if all this were not enough in itself, after the publication on Portal Plus, Makovec allowed himself a diplomatic slip-up, which should have led to his not being in diplomacy in the first place. He threatened the editor-in-chief of Portal Plus, Dejan Steinbuch. “An old Slovenian proverb says,” Makovec wrote, “a stick grows for every ass, even for yours! I promise you that!”
Not only was it a threat – it was a threat to and pressure on free media by a politician, and by a diplomat appointed by a left-wing government – left-wing governments are traditionally very fond of self-declarations about protecting media freedom.
In a similarly bizarre way, in 2013, Alenka Bratušek received a congratulatory message on her election as Prime Minister 20 minutes before the results of the secret ballot were actually announced. Namely, the controversial congratulatory message, captured by Jani Božič as photographic evidence, was from Peter Kraljič, a retired Slovenian businessman who later became an important recruiter on the government side for state-owned companies and parastatal funds, while Božič had to “flee” abroad before the judicial pogrom unleashed on him by Bratušek.
Makovec was also caught in the WikiLeaks scandal
You can also find Marko Makovec on a list of WikiLeaks documents. Read more about his involvement, which was exposed by Assange, at the following link: https://search.wikileaks.org/plusd/?qproject[]=ps&qproject[]=cc&qproject[]=fp&qproject[]=ee&qproject[]=cg&q=makovec#result
It should also be noted that Makovec also has close ties with former US Ambassador Joseph A. Mussomeli, with whom he maintained good relations even after Mussomeli left his post as ambassador to Slovenia. During Mussomeli’s tenure in Ljubljana, it was Makovec who was said to have been the one who brought information to the US Ambassador. Meanwhile, Makovec’s wife, Katarina Makovec, has long been employed by the American Chamber of Commerce of Slovenia.
But what is most surprising in all this is that it is Makovec’s name that appears in the 14 diplomatic dispatches released by WikiLeaks. According to the documents, Makovec lobbied, among other things, for Aspect Energy, an American energy company that initially presented itself as a clean energy company, but then turned out to be interested in extracting natural gas in Prekmurje. Aspect wanted to regulate the legal area for the project to go ahead, as they realised that there were 35,000 owners on 40 hectares of land, which increased the possibility of disputes that could halt the project indefinitely.
What will MEPs say about Makovec?
This raises the question of what MEPs will make of European Commissioner candidate Kos’s hearing before the European Parliament if they find that she has nominated a diplomat to head her cabinet who has in the past threatened a journalist and even got caught up in the WikiLeaks scandal.
I. K.
