President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and Prime Minister Robert Golob came to Črna na Koroškem on Tuesday to mock the people of Črna, who have been affected by last year’s disasters.
Ursula von der Leyen, a great champion of the rule of law, and the man who has destroyed the rule of law in Slovenia, visited the municipality of Črna na Koroškem on Tuesday, where they were hosted by the red leadership of the municipality. During his visit, Prime Minister Robert Golob, without a hint of irony, “thanked the municipal leadership for the enormous amount of work they have done, and the people of Črna for getting back up on their own two feet.”
Just like last year, there was a lot of talk about the solidarity of the people and how the European Union had already released 100 million euros in advance payments to Slovenia from the European Solidarity Fund last year, and last week, the European Commission proposed an additional 328 million euros in aid to Slovenia for infrastructure repairs, to be spent within a year and a half of the approval.
Von der Leyen and Golob live in their own world
Von der Leyen thanked Prime Minister Golob for his “excellent cooperation” – much to the astonishment of all Slovenians and especially the flood victims – which she said was necessary for the efficient use of the funds. She also – inexplicably – praised the work of the Slovenian administration. She said that it was a trustworthy system that ensured that it was achieving the effects that it wanted and worked for.
Meanwhile, Golob praised the rapid response “both by the country and by the EU after the storm last August,” adding that “sometimes, we all wish that the recovery would go faster, but unfortunately, sometimes money is not even the biggest obstacle.” “The funds are there,” he said, noting that the biggest challenge today is to prepare the relevant documents so that reconstruction can start.
Slovenian voters have known for a long time that Golob lives on a planet of his own, and after all, we showed that we know this at the elections. What we did not know was that the President of the European Commission is also an inhabitant of the same planet.
What is the sad truth?
The situation in the real world is very different from that on Planet Golob. The promised houses to house those affected by floods and landslides have not yet been built, even though the Prime Minister had previously promised that they would build a hundred every month. Bureaucracy is still, or increasingly, choking the procedures, and only 7,444 beneficiaries have so far received aid in six tranches, totalling 34.6 million euros, at an average of 4,648 euros each. The only people who have really helped people in the affected areas have been politicians and members of the Slovenian Democratic Party (Slovenska demokratska stranka – SDS).
Golob often boasts about the rapid response of the government and the EU, but the truth is that their “extremely rapid” response in the year after the floods, out of the promised 100 houses per month, only put bureaucratic obstacles in the way, so that the only new house, and even that one was able to be built because it was donated, sat empty for three months.
The government announced at a correspondence meeting on the 15th of July this year that an advance payment of 1.1 million euros would be made to 201 beneficiaries under Strand 6, but this is an average of only 5,472 euros per beneficiary! Previously, the first five strands have so far paid out 4,648 euros per beneficiary. That is to say, the government has paid out around 10,000 euros to beneficiaries in one year, despite the fact that some are still de facto homeless.
There is also a second problem: there are currently 343 houses on the list for possible demolition, and only 73 have a decision at the moment, while 85 have been removed from the list and are without status, as well as ineligible for the 20 percent advance payment – so people are living in uncertainty, and there is already a second winter on their doorsteps, which they will spend worrying about their future. This includes families with young children.
Not for the first time, the European Commission has covered up the bad work of the Golob government
This is not the first time that the European Commission has shown a bizarre bias in favour of left-wing European governments. Let us recall that it did not bother them at all that the socialist Prime Minister Sanchez in Spain wanted to use the new media law to become the arbiter of what is real news and what is not. In Slovenia, too, the European Commission, in its annual report on the rule of law, noted “progress in all areas,” even after Golob publicly admitted on Radio-Television Slovenia that he and the journalists had “purged” the Janšaists (supporters of Janez Janša) from the police and the public media. Also, the Commission praised Golob even after the former Minister of the Interior admitted that Golob had pressured her in relation to police staffing – with specific wishes on who should be chief where.
Clearly, the European Union (or at least the European Commission and the European Parliament) has a political agenda that overlooks all the bad things that happen because of left-wing governments, while even making up things that are untrue about right-wing governments. We have seen this practice in the case of Poland under the previous government (while the current government even allows the police to carry national television journalists out of their offices in handcuffs), in the case of Hungary and, of course, in the case of Slovenia, where, under the previous government, we were under the constant scrutiny of Brussels, which was investigating phantom pressures on the media. Such an EU, not just of two speeds, but of two very different standards, is unsustainable. We do not need such an EU, and in time, it will inevitably disintegrate into something resembling its roots – the European Coal and Steel Community.
I. K.
