After the election and swearing in of the new government in the National Assembly, the now-former Prime Minister Janez Jana handed over government affairs to his successor in the position of Prime Minister, Robert Golob. Namely, on Wednesday, with 53 votes in favour and 28 votes against, the deputies of the National Assembly confirmed the ministerial team of the new government, which will be led by the President of the Freedom Movement party (Gibanje svoboda), Robert Golob. Slovenia thus got its 15th government, which consists of the Freedom Movement, the Social Democrats (Socialni demokrati – SD) and the Left (Levica).
The government team was supported by the deputies of the Freedom Movement, the SD party, the Left, and the deputy of the Hungarian national minority, Ferenc Horvath, while the deputy of the Italian national minority, Felice Žiža, was not present at the vote.
The approximately two-year term of the third Janša government was marked, among other things, by the fight against the Covid-19 epidemic and mitigation of its consequences, as well as Slovenia’s Presidency of the Council of the European Union.
Janša’s government built Slovenia up
“During the last two years, we have achieved many victories that will accompany Slovenia on the path of the largest investment cycle in history. The fruits of our work will soon be seen in every town, and in many of them, the results are already apparent. The budget for 2022 and 2023 allocates money for schools, kindergartens, hospitals, apartments, old people’s homes, roads, water supply systems and other things, in the amounts for investments that Slovenia has never seen before,” Prime Minister Janez Janša said at the end of his term.
“In these difficult circumstances that were not comparable to any other post-independence government we’ve had; the coalition partners have done a really good job. Our cooperation and trust have only been strengthened and deepened through the difficult situations. Despite all of the pressure, threats and a media lynching at a time when we finally also declared an epidemic in Slovenia in March of 2020, with a delay, our coalition partners showed that the state is important to them, and we did not let the nation down. The epidemic, the presidency, the energy crisis, the war in Ukraine and many other challenges have required tremendous efforts from all of us in the last two years,” he added.
So, what awaits us now, what can we expect from the new government? One of the things to expect are certainly higher taxes, but obviously also socialist restrictions on freedom and democracy. In Wednesday’s discussion in the National Assembly, in their separate presentations of the positions of parliamentary groups, the representatives of the Slovenian Democratic Party (Slovenska demokratska stranka – SDS) and the New Slovenia party (Nova Slovenija – NSi), Anže Logar and Vida Čadonič Špelič, expressed criticism of some of the ministerial candidates of the new government. Among other things, they accused them of lacking professionalism. Other opposition MPs also devoted much of their attention to the issue of the competence of the new ministers.
Golob is apparently in a hurry
The first session of the government after the handover will be devoted to personnel issues already, including the appointment of secretaries of state and director of the Government Communication Office, director of the Slovenian Intelligence and Security Agency, and director-general of the Police. Handovers at individual ministries have mostly already happened on Thursday.
Sara Kovač
