February, 2020 | SLEEPING WITH PENGOVSKY

Janez Janša 3 (With A Vengeance)

President Borut Pahor officially nominated SDS leader Janez Janša as PM candidate yesterday, after the latter secured the support of NSi, DeSUS and vast majority of SMC, thus claiming a majority in the 90-seat parliament. Pengovsky fully expected the efforts to form an alternative coalition to fail with the clock running out on them, but not for the want of trying. It was just that the path to forming a stable coalition had been so narrow both mathematically and politically, that it just didn’t seem worth it.

However, it turned out that there was enough incentive on all sides to turn enough blind eyes to just about every paradox plaguing this particular political gangbang that a deal was struck just as the first (and crucial) constitutional deadline was about to expire, following the surprise resignation of PM Marjan Šarec.

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.