SLEEPING WITH PENGOVSKY

A Blessing In Disguise

The faces were long and the statements short in Muddy Hollows on Friday, after the top EU court nixed the Slovenian motion to find Croatia is breaking EU legislation by refusing to enact the arbitration award in the border dispute between the two countries.

Top EU court nixes Slovenia over jurisdiction to force Croatia to implement the arbitration award but tells both countries to get their respective acts together — *Slovenian flag in front of the EU Court of Justice (source)*

As both readers know, an arbitration tribunal ruled on border demarcation between the two countries in mid-2017 in an award that went largely in Slovenia’s favour, but Croatia refused to acknowledge the result claiming that the process had been irreparably tainted.

If You Don’t Like The Way The Table Is Set, Turn Over The Table

To say that today’s resignation of prime minister Marjan Šarec and his call to early election took everyone by surprise would be a gross understatement. It is, in fact, more akin to yelling “fire!” in a crowded theatre, lobbing a canister of mace in the crowd and letting an alligator loose.

*PM Šarec during his resignation address (source)*

Šarec clearly demonstrated that he gives a grand total of zero fucks about how all of this plays out. Such lack of political self-preservation instinct is a rarity in Muddy Hollows nowadays. That said, however, one must consider the immortal words of Francis Underwood: If you don’t like the way the table is set, turn over the table.

#Karlexit

There was an almost audible gasp on social media in Muddy Hollows once the results finally came in and it had become obvious that Aleksandra Pivec ousted Karl Erjavec as DeSUS leader, by a landslide.

*Aleksandra Pivec, the new DeSUS leader (source)*

The implosion was immediate. Erjavec came into the congress as one of the longest-serving party leaders in the history of independent Slovenia and with an impressive CV of serving as foreign minister in three governments and as minister of defense in two, including the current one, but left almost as a private citizen, announcing his resignation from the government.

Clearly, No-one Was Thinking (part 5: Contra-Iran)

As the shit was brewing in the Middle East over the last few weeks, one man was especially tormented over what his next course of action should be.

*Karl Erjavec with Chief of the General Staff, Maj. Gen. Alenka Ermenc (r) (source)*

You might suspect pengovsky is thinking of Donald Trump or Ayatollah Khamenei, but you’d suspect wrong. The tormented person in question was none other than Slovenian minister of defense Karl Erjavec.

Keeping The Eye On The Ball

Pengovsky was about to write up the fifth (and possibly last) installment of the Clearly, No-one Was Thinking series, when Angelika Mlinar was somewhat unexpectedly not green-lighted as minister for EU cohesion funds by the relevant parliamentary committees.

*Angelika Mlinar during her committee hearing (source: Matija Sušnik/Nat’l Assembly)*

The one thing that stood out as a sore thumb was the fact that it was not her credentials that were debated but rather her national loyalties. In fact, what we witnessed in the committee hearing on Tuesday was a mix of latent nationalism and sexism, with some internal party strife to boot.