It was six months ago, almost to the day, when PM Robert Golob announced Tomaž Vesel as his party’s pick for a post in the next European Commission. And in the face of skepticism and concerns, the Big Bird was resolute in supporting the nominee. Until Friday afternoon, that is.
Vesel wasn’t the strongest pick to begin with. But in doing what he does best, Golob was staunchly behind his man, until the moment he threw him under the bus. And so Vesel was probably as surprised as the media were yesterday afternoon, when he found out he was stepping away from the nomination. And pengovsky is only half joking there.
Push was starting to come to shove early last month. By then it was becoming clear that Ursula von der Leyen’s much vaunted gender-balanced commission was in danger of not happening. At which point Vesel’s already shaky nomination was starting to disintegrate. Slowly at first, and then all at once.
An unnecessary problem
And now, as a result, Golob is once again scrambling to solve a problem entirely of his own making, with only days until the deadline. A problem, mind you, that was entirely avoidable, had the prime minister been thinking with his head instead of his fucking ego. But I guess you can’t teach an old bird new tricks.
There are, on the whole, three major factors that precipitated this clusterfuck.
First, the fact that for the most part, Slovenian political class, especially the liberal-left end of the political spectrum, just doesn’t understand how the EU works. They may understand it from a bureaucratic and legal point of view, but politically they are about as adept at it as Boris Johnson was at delivering Brexit.
Second, no matter how hard he tries – and it is fair to ask whether he even fucking tries – Robert Golob cannot stop shooting from the hip. In his smartassing cockiness he will often say things and promise stuff that is at best problematic and at worst downright damaging. Politically and otherwise.
It was been a feature with him from Day One. Be it throwing the tax reform out the window on live TV, promising paycheck increases to judges and prosecutors he couldn’t deliver on, or nominating a commissioner candidate without consulting his coalition and in direct contradiction with a well-established, if informal, process. He just can’t help himself. As a result, Robert Golob spends almost as much time picking the proverbial eggs off of his face as he does running the country and promising things.
Masterclass in not reading the room
Third, it was by no means a secret that Ursula von der Leyen was aiming for a gender balanced commission. It is not just that EU institutions are big on equity and human rights. It is that gender balance in politics results in better management of public affairs. Not to mention the fact that it looks good politically.
Which is is why it was back in the days of Jean-Claude Juncker that member states were first asked to nominate a female and a male commissioner candidate. It was up to the Commission president to make the final choice.
Moreover, the push for a more gender-balanced EU executive dates back to the first Barroso commission in 2004. To put it another way, we have two decades-worth of precedent and stated political goals. None of this should come as any sort of a surprise. And yet, somehow, Golob thought that pushing Vesel early on will just work. A masterclass in not reading the room, if there ever was one.
Slovenian nominations to the European Commission have a colourful history, to say the least. Ever since Janez Potočnik wrapped up his second commissioner term in Barroso II Commission, things have never gone according to plan.
In 2014, Alenka Bratušek tried to transition from an outgoing PM to commissioner. But instead of a smooth ride she had hoped to engineer for herself, only to be wounded by supposed political allies in Slovenia and then turned into minced meat by a hostile parliamentary committee hearing in Brussels for which she failed to prepare properly.
Deja vu all over again
And things were only slightly better five years later, when PM Marjan Šarec took his sweet time picking his commissioner nominee, eventually ending up with capable-but-nondescript Janez Lenarčič. And while Lenarčič ended up having a wee bit more visibility than initially projected, he was not among the heavy-hitters in the first VDL commission.
Which brings is to Tomaž Vesel. Just how exactly Robert Golob ended up picking him remains a mystery. Not a particularly interesting one, but a mystery nevertheless. Was there some sort of a prior deal? Did one of Golob’s whisperers do a particularly good job? Did someone miscalculate a Gallup test?
At any rate, despite knowing all of the above, Golob when with a guy who was appointed chief of the court of auditors by then-prez Borut Pahor amid quite a bit of controversy and whose only really noticeable result during his nine years in office was to tear Janez Janša’s COVID-19 response to pieces. Which, fine. That as shambolic as it could get (with the possible exception of Boris Johnson), but still. Not really a towering figure in the civil service.
And when things started going south for Golob and Vesel, the former dug in. He has made up his mind, he told VDL. He even had some dodgy public opinion polls made, whereupon the voting public, which usually has trouble telling apart European Council and the Council of Europe, was suddenly well versed in the granular detail of European Commission office politics.
The poll showed the that a large majority of respondents were fully behind Tomaž Vesel. Though most of them never really heard of the guy. But you know, you gotta stick it to Brussels, or something.
Leftist nativists
And if that wasn’t enough, SD and Levica, the junior coalition partners were also fully onboard with Golob’s commissioner pick. Even though the two parties are – on paper at least – even more in favour of gender equity than Golob’s populist-liberal Gibanje Svoboda. And even though neither party had any say whatsoever in the initial pick, as the Big Bird presented them with a fait acompli.
But somehow, the two left-wing parties ended up with nativist argument that the commissioner pick is nothing short of a matter of national sovereignty.
Which of course is a monumentally wrong, stupid and short-sighted line of thinking. Or, as both SD and Levica would call it, a Monday.
Namely, national sovereignty is not challenged or limited by the EU. It is enhanced by the EU. Which is precisely why it is in the country’s fucking interest to work with and not against the commission chief when picking the most appropriate candidate or candidates.
Writing on the wall
Exasperated Ursula von der Leyen basically had to write it on the wall for several member states to get it, when she let it be known that those countries that nominate a female candidate could be looking at a more influential portfolio than if they stayed with their male and often antagonistic pick.
The message was broadcast in Technicolor it still took Golob until last Friday to get it. At which point Tomaž Vesel learned that he is, in fact, dropping out of the process. Officially, he cited “differing view on Commission priorities” as the reason for throwing in the towel. And if you believe that, pengovsky has got a nice plot of prime swampland to sell you down in Florida. Vesel was told to pack it in and pack it in he did, like the good boy that he is.
Had Golob played his cards right, he’d have nominated a male/female pair of candidates from the get go. That way, if one got the nod, they could potentially still give the other a nice little advisory position in their cabinet. Or something along these lines.
But as things stand now, PM Golob needs to come up with a female candidate, pronto. Like, he needs a name by Wednesday. And that is turning out to be a bit of a problem.
Kos vs. Fajon and why both have issues
According to media reports, the PM’s pick is Marta Kos, his erstwhile presidential nominee. But seeing how she was thrown to the dogs about this time two years ago, just like Vesel was two days ago, she should be forgiven if Kos flipped the bird to Golob and told him to go fuck himself and the horse he rode in on.
Now, pengovsky is not saying that will happen, but early last week she was adamant that she is not in the commissioner mix in any way, shape or form. But, a week is a long time in politics.
On the other hand, there’s some pretty strong scuttlebutt that foreign minister Tanja Fajon is eyeing the position. Which isn’t all that far fetched, given that VDL is looking for a nominee with strong EU chops and significant executive and/or diplomatic experience.
Tanja Fajon covers all these bases. What is more, the fact that she was closely involved with Western Balkans and their accession to the EU makes her almost an ideal candidate for the enlargement portfolio. Which just happens to be on the Slovenian wish-list for more than a decade.
So, will Tanja Fajon land Muddy Hollows the much-vaunted enlargement gig in the next EU commission, less than a year after she presided over the much-vaunted repeat of the UN Security Council membership? I mean, now that she is no longer the Big Cheese of the Social Democrats she has much more leeway in her career opportunities.
It would have been quite an achievement, to say the least. If it weren’t for the small fact that Golob is reportedly adamant that Slovenian commissioner must be from the liberal team, while Fajon is, of course, a social democrat.
Dark horse candidates
So, Marta Kos can swallow her pride and give Golob one more chance. Or, Golob can swallow his pride and give Tanja Fajon a CV upgrade of a lifetime. Those seem to be the two main options as crunch-time approaches.
But seeing as neither of these are a shoo-in, for different reasons, we should not lose sight of dark-horse candidates. To wit, former justice minister Dominka Švarc Pipan is still free agent and Golob definitely owes her one for exposing the SD shenanigans over that dodgy real-estate deal. Or maybe Speaker Urška Klakočar Zupančič needs to be promoted so that someone a bit more pliable can take over the parliament.
But going on previous experience, odds are Muddy Hollows will once again end up with a capable-but-dour nominee, currently working their ass off somewhere in the higher ranks of Brussels bureaucracy.
Because that’s the way the cookie usually crumbles around here.
UPDATE: Marta Kos got the nod as the new nominee this morning. She will now have to go through a non-binding hearing in the national parliament tomorrow which might well be an unseemly affair, as Kos quit GS in late 2022 amid much drama and questions are bound to be asked. After that, it’s tete-a-tete with VDL on Wednesday and then the real show begins in the European Parliament.
