The shameful appeal by Slovenian President Nataša Pirc Musar to restart talks with the fascist Russian Federation is echoing in Brussels. It seems that the Slovenian President has found sympathy mainly with the European political establishment, which is too “right-wing” even for the right-wing ECR (European Conservatives and Reformists) party.
Controversial MEP Fernand Kartheiser, otherwise known for his sympathies towards Russia, was expelled from the right-wing ECR group on Wednesday after an unauthorised visit to Moscow and a meeting with Kremlin officials. The Luxembourg politician is now calling on his colleagues to support the bettering of relations with Vladimir Putin.
In a message obtained by Politico Playbook, Kartheiser seeks the support of fellow MEPs for the urgent question of whether the European Commission intends to “re-launch the dialogue with the Russian Federation”, taking advantage of Slovenian President Natasa Pirc Musar‘s call to start “quiet” diplomacy with Moscow.
Fortunately, European democracy is not captive to the remnants of the Central Committee of the Union of Communists in the same way that Slovenia is, and has therefore firmly rejected such calls. “There are times when silence would mean complicity and when actions must speak for our values,” said ECR Co-President Nicola Procaccini in a statement on Thursday, after the group followed through on its threats to expel Kartheiser. “A political group cannot function if its fundamental principles are questioned from within.”
Kartheiser’s office told Politico that he had secured eight co-signatories. In a video interview with Fidias Panayiotou, the infamous Cypriot YouTube influencer turned MEP, they hinted that they could form a political group together.
The Slovenian President is in bad company
Nataša Pirc Musar, who is just finishing an African tour in which she declared war on poverty and climate change, has thus found herself on the margins of Europe, where both the Russophile renegades on the far left and the far right belong. Her calls for dialogue with Moscow, while it continues to indiscriminately kill Ukrainian children and women by deliberately targeting soft civilian targets, have not, however, been met with the same enthusiasm as in the crippled Slovenian social space. Talking to an aggressor who makes it clear that their aim is the complete subjugation of an attacked sovereign neighbour is something completely outside the real political framework in the European context – especially after a whole group of Western politicians talked to Putin before the war started, begging him not to start a war and even offering a whole series of concessions.
Today, in 2025, it is clear to everyone that Russia does not want to talk about anything other than the surrender of Ukraine and the way in which they will install their political puppet, like Yanukovych, in the country. That is because, after three years, Russia itself is no longer pretending that this is about ‘protecting the Russian minority’ in Donetsk, but about a typical war of conquest. Pirc Musar, with her bizarre appeal, is a typical representative of the Slovenian left, but she has unwittingly exported a dirty family secret to the European Union: most Slovenian leftists are, on an ideological level, both extreme European rightists and extreme European leftists.
She also “dragged” von der Leyen into this
As previously reported, Pirc Musar recently said that the suspension of dialogue with Russia was a mistake and called for a “group of wise men and women” to lead the resumption of talks, she told Politico. “One of the EU’s key mistakes was stopping communicating with Russia. The EU should appoint a group of wise men and women to start quiet diplomacy with Russia as a first step towards direct dialogue,” she said.
This is a controversial enough statement in itself, and one that is now being applauded by the far right in Europe, but Pirc Musar did not stop there. What is more, she claimed that the European Commission was also considering contact with Russia, and even said that she had been told by Ursula von der Leyen herself that “they are trying to do it”. Even if von der Leyen had indeed told her this, it would have been a major scandal, because internal conversations between European politicians are not supposed to be shared in public, because this makes the whole of Western politics vulnerable to manipulation by Russia. This is, of course, the ABC of politics, which the politically completely inexperienced Pirc Musar does not understand.
Dialogue with fascist Russia?!
Not long ago, we could claim that Pirc Musar may be shamelessly politically coquettish with the far left, but at least she is on the right side of history as far as the war in Ukraine is concerned, and she is unconditionally demanding Russia’s withdrawal from Ukraine. This illusion has also been shattered by her recent “group of wise men and women” statement.
It is bizarre that we should now suddenly enter into discussions with a country that has liquidated entire villages, including children and women. Ten thousand children are still in Russian captivity, where they are suffering re-education in the manner of Nazi Germany. Russian soldiers are cutting the testicles of prisoners of war, and we have seen the horrific images of families being shot and massacred in Bucha – and now, Pirc Musar would like to start talking. Not surprisingly, three groups of people in particular were delighted by her words: the European far left, the European far right and, above all, the Kremlin mafia that rules the Russian Federation. After Foreign Minister Tanja Fajon, will she be the second politician to make a name for herself in Moscow?
Whatever the case, her political patrons – former Presidents Danilo Türk and Milan Kučan, have apparently really ‘bought’ themselves a suitable candidate with our money. But we Slovenians are blushing on the international stage, as we did with Golob and Fajon.
Mitja Iršič
