Marta Kos is slated to be come the commissioner for EU enlargement in the next European Commission. The announcement was part of Ursula von der Leyen’s big reveal on Tuesday and it left Slovenian PM Robert Golob positively giddy.
Despite ever-increasing evidence to the contrary, Muddy Hollows continues to see itself as something of a Balkan protector saint, when it comes to the EU. Which is why successive Slovenian governments were pining to win the enlargement portfolio over the past couple of commission cycles. Yesterday, the dog has finally caught the car. Now what?
First of all, as pengovsky overtly hinted at in his last post, Marta Kos is a far better commissioner candidate than Tomaž Vesel, PM Golob’s initial pick, ever was. She has the diplomatic chops, something of a presence in Brussels and has been breathing the rarefied air of higher-end politics long enough to find her way around her new portfolio.
The enlargement they always wanted
Purely from the enlargement point of view, Slovenian foreign minister Tanja Fajon would probably be an even better fit for the job. Not in the least because she covered visa liberalisation and rule of law in the Western Balkans during her time as MEP.
But she is a social democrat and the Big Bird was adamant that a liberal should get the gig. Thus, Marta Kos decided that the way Golob pushed her under the bus during 2022 presidential campaign wasn’t that bad, and graciously accepted the nomination, winning the coveted enlargement portfolio in the process.
From the bird’s eye perspective, this is a massive victory for Slovenia on the EU front in general and for this government in particular. Not only does it set PM Golob apart from most of his predecessors, it also comes on the heels of other foreign policy coups during his term. Specifically, the political commitment to continued EU enlargement, granting candidate status to Bosnia-Herzegovina, and another term as the non-permanent member of the UN Security Council.
These are no small things and given that Slovenian EU and foreign policies are usually middling at best, this is nothing to scoff at. It is also true that Golob personally had fairly little to do with this on the operational level. But it happened on his watch and in the end, personal rapport counts, too. And he has that with most EU leaders, in spades.
That said, it would be way too soon for Golob to break out the champagne just yet.
The Letter
The Big Bird may have had a hand in landing the enlargement portfolio for Marta Kos, but in the process he made this massive mid-flight shit that will take time to clean up. What is more, by acting as stupidly as he did, he may have well endangered his own nominee, yet again.
By sticking with Tomaž Vesel for much longer than politically expedient, Golob forced von der Leyen to tell him point blank, that she wants Vesel gone, pronto. And tell him she did. In writing. Which, of course, goes contrary to Rule Number One in politics: never write if you can speak, never speak if you can nod and never nod if you can wink.
I mean, Jesus fucking Christ, it was obvious Vesel was a no-go. And yet, the politically still-inexperienced Golob gave VDL no choice but to pen a formal letter, rejecting the nominee in no uncertain terms.
When you’re in a hole…
As with most politicians, Golob wouldn’t, couldn’t admit that he got handed his own ass, and made up some bullshit story about Vesel resigning of his own accord because reasons. Specifically, ten days ago pengovsky wrote
(…) 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.
Soon thereafter rumours started swirling that VDL sent a letter instructing Golob to get rid of Vesel, expeditiously. And when Golob’s office started played coy about the mere existence of VDL’s letter, not officially denying it, but not confirming it either, the SDS reached for their smelling salts, because OMG, Sovereignty! tHe pM cAvEd tO bRuSSelS!!!11!!
Janez Janša and his stormtroopers know an opening when they see one. And Golob only started digging deeper, maintaining that Vesel wanted to go and that our illustrious PM was now working overtime to make sure Slovenia got the best deal possible. This, of course made him take the time out from the rest of his overtime work where is making sure Slovenia gets the best deal possible. Or something.
Point being that by making up this cockamamie story, Golob was not only putting himself in an ugly position, he was putting VDL in an ugly position, too. And Saint Ursula – no stranger to messaging controversies herself – would have none of it.
When the cover-up is worse than the crime
During the big reveal yesterday, she flat out confirmed the existence of the letter, had it released and be done with it. After all, the letter is as boilerplate as it gets and she was fully within her rights to reject the obviously unsuitable nominee.
To be sure, Janez Janša doesn’t give a flying fuck about who the Slovenian nominee is, insofar as he is not the person making the nomination. But what he does care about a lot, is making life difficult for whoever is keeping the PM seat warm for him.
And when the SDS caught a whiff of the letter, it immediately sensed an opportunity to derail the already tight confirmation schedule. Which is why chair of the EU affairs parliamentary committee, SDS MP Franc Breznik refused to convene a new parliamentary hearing for Marta Kos “until the circumstances of Vesel’s resignation were fully established”.
And in a classic example of the cover-up being worse than the crime, the opposition is now holding Golob’s feet to fire, not because he caved to VDL’s pressure but because he tried to bluff his way out of the situation and got called on it.
Deja vu all over again, again
As a result, today’s national parliamentary hearing of Marta Kos will be as much about her EU chops as it will be about the nomination process as such. And the SDS is counting on rattling her enough to provide some useful material for the actual hearing in the European Parliament and possibly derail her nomination completely.
They’ve done it before with Alenka Bratušek, albeit under different circumstances. It seems reasonable to expect they will have another go at it.
Not that the Party is not preparing the terrain for that, as it is. From the moment Kos agreed to the nomination, she was subject to a relentless character assassination campaign.
That she’s in it for the money. That she is a pro-Russian stooge. And that she snitched for UDBA (or SDV), ex-Yugoslav secret police.
Any of these are par for the course for the Slovenian right wing, obviously. Especially the unabashedly sexist remarks about gold-digging, as if Kos didn’t have successful stints in diplomacy, journalism, PR and lobbying on her resume.
The same goes for that old chestnut, claims of working for UDBA/SDV. If every claim of UDBA affiliation the Party ever made were true, the population of Slovenia would be about 3.5 million, or something.
Both of these are tried-and-tested methods of character assassination in Muddy Hollows. On the flip side, it should be easy for Kos to strike these allegations down.
The Russian move
As for her alleged pro-Russian stance, it all comes down to a single sentence from an interview in March 2022, where she said that revoking honorary consul statuses for Russia and Belorussia was a mistake as it closed off lines of communication. She also added that historically, Muddy Hollows has had good relations with Russia.
In that same interview, about a month after Russia invaded Ukraine and a month before Golob tossed Janša out of power, Kos also stated in no unclear terms that Moscow is breaking international law and that is should be held fully accountable.
At the time, Kos was in the mix to become Golob’s foreign minister and between her and Tanja Fajon, was seen as the more clear-eyed of the two on the Russia threat. Luckily, both Fajon and Golob became staunch supporters of Ukrainian resistance after winning the election. It seems reasonable to expect that Kos’ stance towards Russia also hardened over the last two-and-a-half years.
Which brings us to the title of this here post.
With Marta Kos on the cusp of becoming the EU commissioner for enlargement, the Slovenian foreign policy dog has finally caught the car. Now what?
Borut Pahor out of the mix
As a brief aside, the only absolutely positive outcome of the Kos Komission Kerfuffle will be that Borut Pahor will no longer have any chances of becoming the EU go-between for Serbia and Kosovo.
Two top-tier officials from the same country covering more or less the same area is simply not the way EU does things. Which is for the better, since Pahor never really understood Balkans and is more likely to reignite a shooting war in the region than to facilitate any sort of a dialogue.
And if you’re willing to entertain conspiracy theories, you could do worse than thinking that Pahor may be attempting to plot Marta Kos’ downfall during the confirmation process in Brussels. Because he really needs that international job.
But if Kos is indeed confirmed, she has her work cut out for her, too.
Enlargement, at some point in the future
Just because she may get the job, the rest of former Yugoslavia will not magically become EU members over the next five years. In fact, it would be remarkable if even a single Western Balkan country were to join the union by 2029. Pengovsky is looking at you, North Macedonia.
In terms of economic and political influence, Austria, Germany, Turkey, Russia, China and the US (to name but a few examples) have long overshadowed Slovenia in the Balkans. Nevertheless, Muddy Hollows still sees ex-Yugoslavia as something of its own backyard. And the ship-shape Slovenes (uredni Slovenci) are still often considered as the gold standard in how to run a country.
To put it crudely, Slovenia is to Bosnia-Herzegovina what Germany is to Slovenia. And though everyone knows that there is a metric fuckton of work to be done before remaining former Yugoslav countries come even close to EU membership, there may be some irrational hope attached to the fact that Slovenia got the enlargement portfolio.
However, these are not enlargement-friendly times. First of all, enthusiasm over joining the EU is falling all over Western Balkans. The closer these countries are to the union, the more obvious it is becoming that it is all a bit of a coordinated chaos rather than the picture perfect family where everyone knows their place and just fucking behaves.
Enlargement, barely palatable
And that is before we take into account the continuous migration pressure, where candidate countries are often asked (and not particularly nicely, at that) to take one for the team and keep the migrants out of the EU. Because somehow that will win them brownie points, or something.
On the other hand, it is precisely migrations that cause the pan-EU knee-jerk reactions by various populist and far-right-adjacent governments. This in turn makes any thought of enlargement barely palatable to existing members the moment the debate turns from geopolitics to practicalities.
Just take a look at all the support Ukrainian EU membership got in general and the ire of Polish and other farmers, when Ukrainian grain actually hit EU markets.
All it will take to derail the already fragile movement towards another EU enlargement some time in the future is a Viktor Orban doing Russia’s bidding, or a nativist Dutch government, or a dysfunctional Bundeskanlzeramt, or whathaveyou.
Managing expectations
Serving as enlargement commissioner in this environment is a much more difficult job than it may have seemed when Golob and VDL were haggling over names and portfolios.
Marta Kos will have to sell the notion of further EU expansion to some very skeptical member states, while managing expectations of aspiring EU members in the Balkans. And managing in this case means both “generating” and “holding back” enthusiasm for EU membership.
Because if there is no tangible progress on either of these two fronts over the next five years, especially with any of the ex-YU states, the inescapable conclusion in the Balkans will be that even the Slovenes can’t make it happen, so why bother.
And the moment Balkan countries stop aspiring for some sort of a EU membership is the moment we’re back in early 20th century. And then… well, you do the math.
