“To put it bluntly, the current government is the most aggressive one so far when it comes to attacking and dealing with nature and the environment. As most non-governmental organisations in the field of environmental and nature protection are left-wing and somehow cannot break out of these ideologies, we are more often than not left alone in pointing out all kinds of irregularities, as the political orientation of the government does not mean anything to us,” the NGO Balkan River Defence told us.
We recently reported on the intention of the government of Robert Golob, together with the coalition in the National Assembly, to amend the Criminal Code so that suspected contamination of drinking water would no longer be included in the catalogue of criminal offences. The bill was tabled under the urgent procedure and has already passed its second reading. The Slovenian Democratic Party (Slovenska demokratska stranka – SDS) believes that with the manoeuvre in question, the government wants to prevent any investigations into Janković’s C0 sewerage channel.
Nika Kovač is staying quiet
The government wants to prevent any investigative proceedings related to the construction of the C0 sewerage channel, warned the SDS party MP, Jože Tanko. One would have expected that the first person to speak out in public would have been the head of the NGO the 8th of March Institute (Inštitut 8. marec), Nika Kovač, protesting against Janković’s corrupt intentions, but none of this has happened. She has also not responded to our press questions yet. We have, however, received a reply from the NGO Balkan River Defence.
Environmental NGOs are mostly left-leaning
Among other things, the Balkan River Defence stated that environmental NGOs are mostly left-leaning and that the current government is the most aggressive ever in terms of attacking nature and the environment. They also wrote that this is something scandalous and that the matter is probably in breach of the Constitution of the Republic of Slovenia. We have also not yet received a reply from another NGO for clean drinking water – Focus – The Association for Sustainable Development.
We are publishing the Balkan River Defence’s response in its entirety below:
“Our small organisation is specifically dealing with the protection of rivers as such, especially from unnecessary hydropower dams and construction interventions. Indirectly, of course, this also includes the protection of clean drinking water, as preserved free-flowing rivers replenish groundwater, which is the majority source of
drinking water in Slovenia. Because our team is so small, we are not able to focus on all the problems that rivers and nature in general have, but have to choose the problems that are the most sensitive and realistically solvable to try to solve.
In light of this, we have had opposing views with many of the Slovenian governments, left, right and centre, but to put it bluntly, the current government is the most aggressive of all of them when it comes to attacking and dealing with nature and the environment. Since most NGOs in the sphere of environmental and nature protection are politically left-wing and somehow do not know how to extricate themselves from these ideologies, this time, we are left more or less alone in pointing out all sorts of irregularities (merging of ministries, replacements in leading positions, the way in which post-flood rehabilitation is being handled, the energy lobby at the head of the main decision-making positions, etc.), as the political orientation of the government does not mean anything to us.
We are not aware of the alleged attempt by the government coalition to remove the suspicion of the offence of contamination of drinking water from the criminal code, but if your claim is true, it is yet another in a long line of scandalous moves by the current government which, because of the silence and non-coverage of the subject by the majority of the media, is not reaching the people. The potential reason for this kind of change to the Criminal Code is clear to anyone who knows how to think at all and clearly shows that Slovenian politics operates on the principle of you scratch my back, I scratch yours. If the matter moves to a decision in the National Assembly, the expert service of the National Assembly will have to inform the Members of Parliament before the decision that this is probably an unconstitutional change in the law, and if the rule of law is still functioning, things should stop there.”
Domen Mezeg
