While pengovsky was in the US chasing the solar eclipse, Borut Pahor was apparently chasing an EU gig. After none of the high-profile jobs he so often hinted at panned out (to great astonishment of a grand total of zero people), the former president would now like to be the EU’s Kumbaya man for Kosovo and Serbia.
Officially styled as EU Special Representative for Belgrade – Priština dialogue and other Western Balkans regional issues, it is a thankless job. The gig mostly involves coming up with excuses to organise meet-ups between Aca Vučić and whoever Kosovo’s top ćulaf is at any given time, while allowing the two countries can continue to pretend the other doesn’t exist.
Ideally, the Special Representative will be there when Kosovo and Serbia kiss and make up at some point in distant future. Trying to keep the two from restarting a shooting war in the mean time is a strong secondary objective, too. So, I hear you ask, why in the name of everything that is holy would Borut Pahor want a job that requires, you know, work?
Older readers of this here blog will remember that almost every single time a particular gig was ending, Pahor was vaguely hinting at an international or – at the very least – European career. Indeed, back when being an MEP was still considered a glamorous job, Pahor easily landed the gig.
Dancing for himself
But after he returned to Muddy Hollows in 2008 and left and indelible imprint on national politics over the next two decades, the offers never really materialised. Pengovsky can only speculate why that is. Could it possibly be because while he could talk the talk, he never could walk the walk?
Borut Pahor’s primary political concern was always with himself. The greater good came a distant second. Actual policies were an afterthought, if that.
Consider Pahor’s undiplomatic an impolitic outburst at the 2022 Bled Strategic Forum, where in a lengthy and meandering speech he warned Serbian populist and semi-autocratic president Vučić to abandon the idea of Serbian world (think Russian world, but smaller and with a Balkan flair), realign themselves with he EU, and be proactive in normalizing relations with Kosovo.
This, of course, went down like a bucket of cold sick in Belgrade. Serbia recalled their ambassador from Ljubljana for consultations, which in diplomatic parlance translates to »really pissed off«.
Pahoresque bullshit
And even though he may have been factually correct, appointing Pahor as Special Representative would open the EU to accusations of not being an honest broker in the Priština-Belgrade dialogue. Which wouldn’t do anyone any good.
Except Pahor. Even a brief stint as EU’s go-between for Kosovo and Serbia would look far better on his resume than his current gig as the head of a debate-club-cum-lobbying-group called Friends of the West Balkans.
Which may even be the plan: get the job, act surprised as fuck when Belgrade raises objections and then quit after six months later, »to preserve the integrity of the of the process« or some other pahoresque bullshit.
Because back in 2022, he didn’t nail Vučić to the wall because he was fed up with Aca’s duplicity and fence-sitting. Remember that Pahor has always made nice with Vučić’s Slovenian BFF Janez Janša and that he has a thing for strongmen and autocrats in general.
No, the reason Pahor went after his then-Serbian counterpart was that he was auditioning for another role. That of the NATO secretary general. Not that he ever stood a chance of landing it, but the man has a record of overestimating his abilities and misreading the room.
Not reading the room
Just think of his misguided idea to broker a meeting between Trump and Putin in 2017 to facilitate a ceasfire in Ukraine. As if Agent Orange and Moscow Madman needed a face-to-face, given that the latter was already running the former.
Or, take the Bosnian Non-Paper shitturd Pahor dropped in everyone’s lap back in April 2021. It is not that Pahor didn’t mean well, back then. It’s just that once again he utterly failed to read the room and said the quiet part out lout, somehow thinking that it will stay quiet on his say-so.
For their part, the current Slovenian leadership is offering a full-throated support of the former president. Which may come as a surprise to some people, given that Pahor was very vocal in his criticism of PM Robert Golob over the past two years, and the fact that he doesn’t appear to think too highly of his successor, president Nataša Pirc Musar.
Getting him out
However, if you think about it, The Big Bird and NPM have every reason to support Pahor in his sorry-ass quest to land the EU job.
First, this is what a country does. Even a sorry excuse for one, such as Muddy Hollows. When your (former) senior officials run for a international posting, you support them. Not like in 2016, when then-former president Danilo Türk was reaching for the job of the UN secretary general and received next-to-zero support from the government of Miro Cerar. No small thanks to cold signals coming from the office of Türk’s successor, one Borut Pahor.
On the other hand, both Golob and Pirc Musar would be very happy indeed if Pahor was to fuck off from Muddy Hollows and stopped bothering them. Simple.
The job Pahor is angling for is a delicate one. It requires just the right combination of knowing when to speak up and when to shut up, a lot of fake-it-till-you-make it mentality, and a sprinkle of magical thinking.
Borut Pahor is really strong only in the latter. The former three, not so much. But like a bad penny, he keeps turning up when you least need him.
