Last May, Slovenian Member of the European Parliament Milan Zver (Slovenian Democratic Party – SDS/European People’s Party – EPP) filed a lawsuit against the European Commission at the General Court of the EU because the Commission refused to disclose internal documents about the mission of then-European Commission Vice-President Věra Jourová to Slovenia, where it is suspected that Jourová influenced the Slovenian Constitutional Court’s decision on the constitutionality of the Radio-Television Slovenia Act. On Wednesday, the General Court ruled that part of the Commission’s decision to partially reject the MEP’s request for access to the documentation relating to the visit is annulled. This is an important battle won on the road to the truth about how Slovenian politicians, with the help of Brussels, have “depoliticised” the national media outlet, Radio-Television Slovenia (RTVS). MEP Zver sees the ruling as a major victory.
The General Court of the EU has partially upheld MEP Milan Zver‘s claim against the European Commission in relation to the visit of the then-Vice-President of the Commission, Věra Jourová, to Slovenia in March 2023. It annulled part of the Commission’s decision to partially reject his request for access to the documentation relating to the visit, as part of the documentation obtained by the MEP had been blacked out.
He also requested that the European Commission produce all documentation, including the blacked-out parts, and all electronic communications between the Commission and the Slovenian government or other actors involved in the case. The latter request was not granted by the General Court of the EU in its judgment published on Wednesday. Although we will never know all the communications that took place between the Golob government and Věra Jourová’s cabinet, the annulment of the European Commission’s censorship will nevertheless lift the veil of secrecy about how the “negotiations” between the Slovenian Constitutional Court and domestic and international politics took place. Finally, Slovenian taxpayers and viewers of the national media outlet, Radio-Television Slovenia (RTVS) will see the censored part of the text where the European Commission or Jourová specifies “what it wants from Accetto” – the then-President of the Slovenian Constitutional Court.
The mysterious visit
Let’s first think back to what this is all about: Commissioner Věra Jourová’s visit to the Constitutional Court took place only ten days after the Constitutional Court decided to suspend the implementation of the amendment to the Radio-Television Slovenia Act.
Soon after the visit, the Constitutional Court “miraculously” changed its mind, with two Constitutional Court judges completely reversing their opinion, one of them being Matej Accetto, who met with Jourová. The Radio-Television Slovenia Act, which was adopted as a result of the Constitutional Court’s decision, pushed the public media into the arms of the far left, which controls all Slovenian social subsystems. Jourová’s visit was highly suspicious, as it coincided, by a strange coincidence, with a change of opinion by the judges, and the suspicions of interference by the European Commissioner in Slovenia’s internal affairs were deepened by the censored documents delivered by the European Commission to MEP Zver.
The lawsuit was drafted by Miha Pogačnik, a prominent international lawyer and legal expert in international relations, while Janez Stušek will be the official representative of the case before the Court.
MEP Zver decided to take legal action after political and administrative channels failed to yield results.
The documentation is still censored today
What is most problematic about the whole affair is the fact that part of the documentation on the visit, which Zver managed to obtain after lengthy efforts, is still blacked out to this day – without any real explanation, which is extremely suspicious. The action is, therefore, now going to formal proceedings.
Zver expressed the hope that the European Court of Justice would rule on the case as soon as possible. “Because this is a precedent-setting case. We are not only trying to prove some fault or violation of general principles of administrative procedure or violations of substantive rules of European Union law, but also the abuse of power that has taken place in this case and the impermissible intervention of a senior official of the European executive in a Member State, in a field in which the Member State is fully sovereign,” he explained.
“The moment an institution loses trust, it falls into crisis and can also fall apart, which is why I think it is important that we expose such sideshows, such mistakes, as happened with the intervention of Věra Jourová in the Slovenian political and legal space,” he said at a press conference in May.
What do they want to achieve with the lawsuit?
The main goal of the lawsuit is to prove that Jourová has impermissibly interfered in Slovenia’s internal affairs, by ordering the Commission to produce all documentation about the visit, including electronic communications between the European Commission and the Slovenian government and other actors. Although the latter request was not granted by the Court, it is already clear from the – still censored – documentation obtained that violations have taken place, and the purpose of the lawsuit was also to ensure, by means of the verdict, that such cases do not become a permanent practice in the European Union. Now that we are finally going to be able to read what is going on, we are going to get the final piece of the puzzle of the conspiracy between the European Commission and the Slovenian Government against the Slovenian people.
It is a much bigger issue than the judgment on the improper censorship of documents by the European Commission – it is a matter where the European Union’s power to informally interfere in the internal affairs of Member States is in the balance, not only where it has de jure powers, but also where it wants to subversively bring about changes in cronyism with local left-wing governments.
MEP Zver responds to the ruling
MEP Milan Zver took to the social network X to write that this ruling was a great victory at the Court of Justice of the EU: “The judgment concludes that the European Commission acted unlawfully when it refused to allow me to see point 3 of the reminder for Věra Jourová’s visit to Slovenia. Now we will finally be able to see the full content of the chapter ‘What we want from Accetto’.” So now it is time to finally find out what the expectations (or was it pressures?!) of the European Commission and of Commissioner Jourová towards the Slovenian Constitutional Court judge were.
“Congratulations, Milan Zver, for your courage, perseverance and for breaking new ground. It was not easy to withstand all the pressures. Institutionally, this is probably the greatest success of any Slovenian Member of the European Parliament. It is no easy thing to defeat the European Commission single-handedly,” Peter Šuhel, former State Secretary in the Janša government and Zver’s current assistant, wrote on the social network X.
Lawyer Miha Pogačnik, who was one of the expert assistants in the preparation of the lawsuit, also congratulated Zver, writing: “My sincere congratulations, Milan Zver, for your courage to go against the European Commission as an MEP in the interests of public access to information and transparency in the workings of the EU institutions. Congratulations also to his efficient office, headed by Peter Šuhl.”
More to follow.
I. K.
