EU | SLEEPING WITH PENGOVSKY

Tanja Fajon Tested On Ukraine

Two weeks into her term in office, Tanja Fajon is faced with an important test of her foreign policy chops. And not in a way she was (probably) hoping for. An open letter advocating a new, purportedly more sensible approach on Ukraine made its way into the media. The letter was signed by eighteen people of varying importance. Most of them are (or were) academics, some of them are regular TV pundits, still others are political has-beens, looking to reclaim some of the old fame.

Foreign minister Tanja Fajon speaking on the phone. — *Foreign minister Tanja Fajon doing her level best to imitate Ursula von der Leyen (source)*

In all honesty, the text would have probably gone the way of various other letters and petitions that float around in Muddy Hollows at any given time, were it not for the fact that former presidents Milan Kučan and Danilo Türk attached their signatures. Which seemed to kind of complicate things. At least for Tanja Fajon and PM Robert Golob.

Ukraine War Forces Slovenian Politics To Think Foreign Policy Thoughts

In all honesty, it is a bit self-serving to try and look at Russian war against Ukraine through the lens of Muddy Hollows and its political cesspool. But seeing as this is an utterly self-serving blog, pengovsky will go right ahead. PM Janša, on the other hand, will stay put, as the Russian aggression preempted his photo-op in Kyiv planned for today.

Flags if Ukraine in the government district in Ljubljana. — *Ukrainian flags in the government district in Ljubljana (source)*

This, incidentally, should make the Glorious Leader available for a court-date in a defamation case against him. But he’ll probably claim an emergency NatSec Council meeting or something like that. And for once, he may not be lying through his teeth to get out of a court date.

Janša Tweeting Stupid Shit Again Has Real World Consequences

Harold Wilson once observed that a week in politics is a long time. Slovenian PM and everyone’s new favourite whipping boy Janez Janša proved once more that the late British leader was right on the fucking money. In case you spent the last 72 hours under a rock or trying to evacuate Kabul, the story is that the Glorious Leader again buckled under the tiniest of pressures from European Parliament and had suffered Twitter meltdown.

Janez Janša sends out an antisemitic tweet depicting George Soros at a centre of a conspiracy involing several MEPs — Marshal Twito dabbling in antisemitism

However, in an apparent attempt to keep things interesting, Janša laced his latest temper tantrum with a healthy dose of antisemitic dog-whistles, misogyny and choice conspiracy theories. Moreover, to erase what little diplomatic standing he had generated for himself and for the country he unfortunately leads, Marshal Twito started a diplomatic kerfuffle with none other than The Netherlands. Cue eating popcorn gif.

Batting for Hungarian Homophobe, Marshal Twito Imperils Slovenian EU Presidency

Janez Janša saw the 30th anniversary of Slovenian independence as something of a personal milestone. He is the only senior figure of the 1991 independence struggle who is still in public service. Everyone else is either retired, dead or in prison. It was to be a joyous occasion, crowned a few days later by Muddy Hollows taking over EU Council presidency.

Marshal Twito falsely accusing Delo's Brussels correspondent of lying. — *Janez Janša falsely accusing Delo’s Brussels correspondent of lying*

Instead, the Glorious Leader spent the anniversary week doing some light LGBT-bashing on the EU stage. With this, he was paying fealty to his Lord Protectór and then denied all of it, only to be, well, outed by none other than Luxembourg PM Xavier Bettel. Awkward.

Pretty Non-Paper Burns Pretty

The clusterfuck is complete and there will be a bloodbath. The legendary words by the late, great Jaša L. Zlobec, although uttered in a different context, never seemed more appropriate than these days, as the story of what is becoming known as “Slovenian non-paper” on partition of Bosnia and the rest of Western Balkans is developing at pace.

A mock-up map of former Yugoslavia with broken-up Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo, as described in the infamous Slovenian non-paper. — *This is one ugly map (source)*

There are many angles to this story, none of them appealing to the eye. There is nothing to be gained by fooling around with redrawing borders in the Balkans. Doubly so when done in the crass and pedestrian manner the leaked non-paper suggests. The only potential upside to this might be the powers that be paying more attention to Bosnia-Herzegovina. Or at least it might result in Slovenian foreign minister Logar being thrown to the dogs, seeing as this happened on his watch and whatnot.