After MEP Milan Zver demanded that the Commission hand over documentation related to the European Commissioner Věra Jourová’s visit to Slovenia, the European Commission gave the impression that it was hiding something. Initially, an extended deadline was requested, but when Zver finally received the report, it was almost completely censored. At the press conference, EU representatives tried to clarify what was hidden from the public in the document but gave three different answers to the journalists, which further raised suspicions about the correctness of the European Commissioner’s visit.
With each passing day, new doubts are being raised about the correctness of the March visit of the Vice-President of the European Commission, Věra Jourová, to the Slovenian Constitutional Court, which was still in the process of deciding on the Radio-Television Slovenia Act at the time. The Vice President’s office refuses to disclose the notes of the visit at any cost, and each European Commission representative interprets the reason for this in their own way, which further raises suspicions that the conversation between Jourová and the President of the Constitutional Court was merely a debate on the RTV Act.
“The answer of the spokesperson of the European Commission at today’s press conference regarding the reasons for censorship of the report of Jourová’s mission to Slovenia is simply not true,” tweeted MEP Milan Zver, who explained that in his request for the publication of the Commission’s internal documents dated the 8th of March 2023, he had requested not only the publication of the minutes of the conversation between the Vice-President of the European Commission and the President of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Slovenia, Mattej Accetto, but also all the internal documentation within the Commissioner’s Cabinet, which, of course, includes at least the report that was censored and any reminder that was prepared in the Cabinet. MEP Zver added that he had not received an official answer from the Commission on how many Presidents of the Constitutional Courts of the EU Member States had been visited by Commissioner Jourová during her current term of office, and in which Member States – and he has been waiting for the answer for more than two months now. In a reply MEP Zver received after a new request concerning the withheld text, the European Commission replied that the discussions were of an internal nature, and therefore, they did not want to disclose them.
The Commission spokesperson did not know what he was talking about
MEP Zver also tweeted a video of the press conference, where an RTV journalist Igor Jurič asked the two EU Commission representatives questions about Jourová’s visit to Slovenia and the circumstances under which she visited the President of the Constitutional Court, Accetto, but their answers are not convincing. In the first answer, the representative tried to explain that the censored report received by MEP Zver “might” have been censored for the protection of personal data, while the second representative’s answer sounded even more unconvincing. Namely, a representative called Christian explained that the content of the report was censored because it did not relate to the subject of the MEP’s interest. After a long reply in which he spoke a lot but said practically nothing, his expression showed that even he himself did not believe what he was saying.
The Commission spokesperson therefore lied that MEP Zver had only asked for the minutes of the meeting between Jourová and Accetto, which is not the case. Zver asked for the minutes of the conversation between Jourová and Accetto to be published and for internal documentation between the Commissioners’ offices on the mission to Slovenia to be published. He also asked the Commission for all internal communications within Jourová’s Cabinet regarding the visit to Slovenia. All of this, therefore, remains unanswered and unexplained by the Commission.
Ana Horvat
