Category: Slovenia

Slovenian labour unions organised a massive rally on Saturday, calling for an increase in minimum wage which – as it stands now – is indeed criminally low and stands at 589 EUR (gross), with net salary amounting to some 460 EUR. With the onset of the crisis and accompanying staggering increase in unemployment (nearing 100k out of 1.06 million strong labour force) households are finding it increasingly difficult to make ends meet. This was one of the reasons for unions (most of them, anyway) to hold what is apparently becoming a traditional biannual late-autumn strike.

Protesters in downtown Ljubljana (source)

Unlike on the past two occasions (2007 and 2005) pengovsky wasn’t there to witness the show first-hand but while the previous to rallies were held in an increasingly expanding economic environment, this latest installant of labour discontent was held just as latest GDP figures were announced (down 8.3 percent) and when it is perfectly obvious that not only are dark clouds gathering (thanks, Adriaan) but that we’re in a middle of a big fucking storm that shows no signs of abating. Despite these differences the theme remained the same. Higher wages.

Something doesn’t seem quite right. If during a period of economic expansion labour unions demanded higher wages, surely they would recognise the futility and counter-productivity of their demands during the Big Slump?

On the other hand, the employers (firms) keep repeating the same theme, too. In 2005 they yearned for relaxing of employment laws (basically demanding that sacking people be made easier) and cutting taxes. In 2007 they pretty much kept to the same tune, saying that “increasing wages would kill productivity and (while we’re on the issue) so do the high taxes and rigid labour laws, so would the government please do something about that?“. And today, in 2009, they make nervous noises that higher wages would sink a lot of companies and while we’re on the issue, would someone please lower the taxes or ease labour laws or preferably both?

Something doesn’t seem quite right. If during the Big Slump companies worry that increasing wages would send them south, then what the hell fuelled their growth during the good days?

And the government? Ah, the government… Seems like the previous one was heavy on money and light on ideas (it ran a deficit during the good years), whereas this one is trying to operate beyond it’s increasingly meagre means.

Something doesn’t seem quite right. If during the Big… ah, screw it. It just ain’t right. Unions, employers and government are sitting tight, repeating oft-heard tunes while the river flows by, carrying more and more corpses. Time to start banging heads together, kids! This thing ain’t gonna solve itself, you know….

Other than World HIV/AIDS day and anniversary of establishment of Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, 1 December marks the 20th anniversary of Operation North (Akcija Sever), which prevented a massive Serb-led protest against reformist communist leadership of socialist Slovenia and paradoxically helped usher in democratic reform.

What remained of the “Rally of Truth” in Ljubljana on 1 December 1989 (source)

Although technically a relatively simple public order operation, Operation North on 1 December 1989 was the first tangible indicator that Slovenian League of Communists (at the time still constitutionally the only political party in Slovenia) recognised that a) Yugoslavia’s days are numbered, b) Slovenia will have to confront Milošević-led Serbian expansionism by itself and c) is willing to use force to that end, albeit in self-defence.

Demonstrations, organised by supporters of Slobodan Milošević were called “Rallies of Truth”. At their core were a group of Kosovar Serbs with whom Serbian leader crafted an unholy alliance which brought him to power in his republic and provided him with the “masses” he needed to start wrecking havoc in what was then Yugoslavia. After removing leadership of Kosovo, a rally (dubbed the Yoghurt Revolution) was organised in Novi Sad, Vojvodina (the other until-then-autonomous region in Serbia). The movement then moved on to Montenegro, where it at first failed following a police break-up, but succeeded in the second attempt and installed Momir “The Butler” Bulatović

The irony of the whole situation was, that until that date Slovenian leadership was bending over backwards to prevent federal institutions from declaring a state of emergency in Slovenia using “counter-revolutionary” activities by the ever more alienated Socialist Youth organisation (ZSMS) and the fledgling opposition as a pretext. But when push came to a shove immediately after the Slovene Assembly passed constitutional amendments allowing democratic multi-party elections, the republic’s leadership, with Milan Kučan as party president and Janez Stanovnik as president of the republic as two most senior politicians declared a state of emergency (pre-empting a similar move by federal authorities), mobilised special police forces and positioned them on republic’s borders. In charge of the operation was Secretary of Republic for Internal Affairs (basically, police-and-security minister) Tomaž Ertl, who only weeks earlier was vilified as the ultimate human-rights violator for his role in the arrest of Janez Janša in the JBTZ Affair and the arrest of Janez Janša in 1988 (a year earlier), as well as the fact that the Slovenian branch of UDBa (secret police), which permeated Slovenian society was under his command. At the time it was generally understood that with Operation North Ertl sort-of redeemed himself (or at least balanced out his actions) for his JBTZ-related actions. Ertl himself always maintained that his job was to keep law and order and that his actions (including JBTZ) contributed to the fact that federal intervention occurred only after Slovenia actually declared independence.

However, in a feat of political naiveté, President Danilo Türk yesterday awarded Ertl the Silver Order for Services for his actions during Operation North. This, understandably sent shock-waves through Janez Janša’s SDS and generally raised many-an-eyebrow (pengovsky’s included). SDS strongly protested against Türk decision and demanded that the president either revoke the award or resign his post.

The Patria Affair had an interesting double twist this week. On Monday Delo daily ran an article claiming that Finnish investigators led by Kaj Erik Björkvist discovered that the 21 million euros, which were allegedly used to bribe a certain “J” (thought to be then-PM and current leader of the opposition Janez Janša) actually ended up not with Janša himself but with his Slovene Democratic Party (SDS) which used this money to finance their pre-election free weekly rags which were objectively reporting the events as seen by then-rulling SDS. In fact they were agit-prop papers of the worst kind. At any rate, the article by journalist Dejan Karba even quoted Björkvist confirming the money went to SDS and that a paper trail exists to prove it. Obviously all hell broke loose.

Patria APC, codenamed “Svarun” by the Slovenian Army (photo by Leon Vidic/Delo, source)

Media went into a frenzy, SDS went apeshit, denied everything and denounced Karba while Delo newspaper and its editor stood by its journalist even after (watch this) Björkvist denied giving the interview and in the end Karba said that it was actually he who gave Björkvist the incriminating documents which he allegedly got from a source within SDS.

This is where it gets interesting. Dejan Karba was a member of a huge crowd of journalists who descended on mainstream media from various politically biased news-organisations after Janez Janša won 2004 elections and set about “balancing” the media. Only weeks ago, when Janša was questioned by Björkvist, Karba (who reportedly majored in theology) managed to get a hold of a transcript of the questioning and pointed out parts which supposedly proved that there isn’t a shred of evidence against Janša. Since there are only two sources which Karba could have obtained the document from (Janša or Björkvist) there are no prizes for guessing who gave him the file. And as if that wasn’t enough, there was a short interview with Janša next to the article about the interrogation, explaining just what we were seeing (in case the message in the article didn’t get across).

So, Karba is Janša’s man. OK, no problem. Not entirely professional, but not illegal. And certainly not the only biased journalist out there. However, how can it be that only weeks later Karba becomes the centre of SDS’ vicious attacks on “unprofessional and politically motivated journalism”. Either Karba had an epiphany (pun very much intended) or this is a neat trick gone wrong, with SDS trying to do as much damage control as possible.

But to explain, we have to refresh our memories vis-a-vis an event which politically shaped Janez Janša. Depala Vas Affair. To cut a long story short, Janez Janša (back then the immensely popular and powerful defence minister) and his inner circle tried bring the fledgling Slovenian army under their complete control by discrediting other factors in civil control over armed forces, especially the nominal commander-in-chief and Janša’s arch-enemy, then-president Milan Kučan. Janša and his people tried to achieve this by planting forged documents about a coup d’etat being planned, whereupon the president would jump the gun, be exposed as acting on forged documents and be forced to resign.

Do you see where this is going? Admittedly, the following is pure speculation. But this thing with Karba has “Depala Vas Affair” written all over it. If we suppose for a moment that Karba and Janša are still on good terms, then it is entirely possible that the the documents on SDS-ran newspapers were forged in order to discredit Björkvist and that Karba brought tried to give them to the investigator, knowing quite well that they are forgeries. It was hoped that Björkvist would jump on the opportunity and build a case on those documents, which would at some point be exposed as forgeries, causing the investigation to collapse in one master stroke. Except it didn’t work.

Björkvist denied giving a statement to Karba, who later admitted that the investigator talked to him “off the record”. The fact that Karba published it anyway and named his source can only be interpreted and complete journalistic ineptitude (not impossible) or an attempt to provoke Björkvist into making a mistake. He didn’t make one and told Karba to deliver the documents to Slovenian police. Which of course Karba did not yet do.

Again, this is pure speculation. To date there is no information on whether documents Karba tried to give to Björkvist were genuine or not. But knowing Janša’ modus operandi and the fact that the investigation is apparently rattling his cage quite hard, Karba’s actions and subsequent article bear all the hallmarks of an attempted plant and/or double-cross. As the investigation centres more and more on Janša and his immediate circle, the former PM seems to react ever more instinctively, resorting to tested tricks.

Altough it should be said that the trick did not work at Depala Vas either, because Janša’s people screwed up the plant. Indeed, the only time such a deception worked was when it was used on Janša, while he was in army prison in 1988 during the JBTZ Affair. Go figure…

PM Pahor cleaning shoes to Slovenian football squad after qualifying for 2010 World Cup (source)

Dear Prime Minister!

A year ago, almost to the day to the day, your government was sworn in. Back then I wrote you a letter which never saw the inside of your inbox, although some said that it should. Be that as it may, I hope you’ll look upon this letter with benevolence.

It will probably come as no surprise to you if I tell you that in your first year in office you didn’t exactly leave an overwhelmingly positive impression. You see, the thing is that you, your party and your coalition were elected primarily for one reason: you promised to do a better job than the other guy. Sure, you can say that the crisis hit stronger, harder and deeper than anyone expected (certainly your predecessor was oblivious to the impeding doom). But, to be honest, this doesn’t exactly cut it. You knew shit was brewing, you campaigned on shit brewing and yet when it spilled over, your government seemed to have been caught by surprise.

Seemed being the operative word here. I’m sure you will agree that keeping up appearances was and still is important to your style of premiership. However, as things took the above mentioned turn for the worse, a little more substance would come in handy. Well, fuck it. A lot more substance would come in handy. There, I said it!

You made a big show of trying to avoid the “to-victor-go-the-spoils” mentality and – achieved nothing. In fact, it backfired. You threw away incredible amounts of your newly minted political capital upon taking office by keeping Dimitrij Rupel on board. Your explanation at the time was flimsy at best, while you ditching him only months later, as well as your recent foreign policy exploits only reiterate what most of us knew all along: that Rupel is bad news all around and that he shouldn’t be touched with a ten-foot-pole. And yet you wanted to play Jesus, trying to heal political lepers, not only with Dimitrij, but also with Anže Logar, Janša’s head of Government Communication Office, offering him a job in your office upon hearing that he was being dismissed from his position.

You even made overtures to Janša’s SDS to form some sort of partnership for development, for a moment throwing a shadow of a doubt on just who exactly won the elections. It actually took Janez Janša himself to show you the fault line between coalition and opposition, with his 2007 Annual Account antics. And as if that wasn’t enough, despite you bending over backwards to prevent sacking of hundreds of people who ascended their various positions en masse via political intervention under previous government, Janša’s SDS still berated you over “politically motivated sackings”, creating the infamous sacking-counter on their website.

And as if that wasn’t enough, you forgot to keep your own flock in check. While you tried in vain to re-create, again, your own particular piece of Churchilliana (in victory – magnanimity), your people started dividing the spoils, provoking bitter inter-coalition turf wars including (but not limited to) Katarina Kresal of LDS and Gregor Golobič of Zares, resulting in the Veselinovič Standoff and, ultimately, the Ultra Affair.

Sir!

It’s always easy to be smart with hindsight, but given your position and supposed political prowess you should have seen it coming a mile away. That you did not, or – even worse – that you did, but have let it happen anyway, reflects badly on your record, regardless of your subsequent attempts to contain the damage.

And without trying to put too fine a point on it, it should not go unnoticed that your actions in your own party did nothing to discourage such mentality. You pursued principle on one issue, while acting unscrupulously pragmatic in another. Specifically, you all but forced your long time political ally and unofficial party ideologue Igor Lukšič to step down as party vice-chairman, on the grounds that it is unhygienic for education minister to hold a senior party position. To be exact, you made it known that you don’t want him as your VP and when he ran anyway, you didn’t lift a finger to help him. Even more, you did not object to the fact that Patrick Vlačič, minister of transport ran for and got elected to the same position of vice-chairman.

So, minister of education is a no go, while minister of transport – no problem. What’s up with that? Trying to avoid being accused of charging education ideologically? Has it not dawned on you that you would have been accused of that regardless of what you did? You could have installed a creationist priest as minister of education and still face charges that you’re indoctrinating kids with socialist ideas

Prime Minister!

On the whole it seems that you spent most of your first year in office being haunted by ghosts. Trying to avoid being branded as a left wing anti-business twat, you were branded as an inept left wing anti-business twat with no feeling for social needs whatsoever.

When giving an interview to state television days ago, you (again) provided us with some memorable quotes, most notable of them being the one about you not having a magic wand, by a stroke of which you could make all the economic woes disappear. Fair enough. You indeed can not. But, you see, when you presented us with your team of cabinet ministers, you deliberately gave the impression of that being the best team there was at the time (with the possible exception of Karel Erjavec, but we’ll deal with that another time). And yet Zlata Ploštajner, your minister for regional development resigned after less than a year in office and was replaced by Henrik Gjerkeš, with whom you (by your own admission) spent more time debating the pronunciation of his surname than you did debating his priorities. It could be that there was little to be said, but this was another example of your utterances which did not leave a good impression.

Ditto for your lacklustre support for your finance minister Franci Križanič who admittedly seems to have a hard time coping with the responsibilities of his position, but is – in my opinion at least – far from an incompetent tit the opposition and most media try to portray him. His idea of instituting additional tax levels for highest earners was shot down mostly by coalition parties immediately after it went public, although it was (according to Križanič) supported by all coalition members. And yet, instead of backing him up you said he “works better than talks”. Hello? What kind of a support is that? May I suggest that in the future you use phrases such as “fully and unconditionally support”, “has my complete confidence” and “is performing extremely well under adverse conditions” when trying to support a member of your cabinet? Or, if you want him out of there, try stuff like “will have to decide where his allegiances lie”, “has made an error in judgement” or even “did not seek approval of the entire government”. Any of the above are bound to create a vacancy in the financial ministry

Speaking of vacancies, the number of Slovenia’s unemployed is moving dangerously close to the 100k mark. We both know that this is a bad omen, especially with the nearly 10% drop in GDP year-on-year. Whole companies are going bust and it is fair to say that your government is picking up the tab for your predecessors who kept giving away money for nothing, just to keep people employed and out of unemployment statistic records. It looks as if the moment has come when “the buck stopped” and you are here, faced with a lot of angry people, most of whom are cursing the day of your election victory. But the thing is, you made it look as if you do have the magic wand. You promised that you are prepared to tackle the crisis and you assured us that your people know how to go about their business.

While all of the above may be the case (except, as noted, the magic wand), the end result is sub-standard. And in a case where highly professional and motivated individuals fail to deliver results, it is obvious that their leader (you) has done a poor job in keeping focus and showing them the way.

This, my dear prime minister, is the core of your problems, methinks. You take great interest and spend a lot of energy on trivial matters, while the really big issues and hot potatoes you leave to others to handle. This must change. You must take charge.

Just as you took charge in solving the border dispute with Croatia. Regardless of how it was reached, the Pahor-Kosor agreement is probably the single greatest achievement of your government and of you as its head. And do not think for a moment that I do not recognise the gravity of the situation. What you have done so far verges on the impossible and I suspect that this is part of the reason for wild-eyed stories about foreign pressure which supposedly cajoled you and your opposite number in Croatia to reach an agreement. For some it is simply inconceivable that you and Croatian PM Jadranka Kosor made it almost as far as both late Prime Ministers, Janez Drnovšek and Ivica Račan. And you can be sure that disbelief will turn into bewilderment if the two of you indeed reach a solution by yourselves in the next few days or weeks, as your justice minister Aleš Zalar hinted on Twitter.

A lot is riding on this agreement and if it fails, you would probably do well to resign immediately. Having a politically crippled PM is not something this country can afford at the time.

While we’re on the subject, I’m most pleased about you restoring normal ties with Russia, specifically with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who undoubtedly remembers the snub given to him by your predecessor. Good relations with Russia are of strategic importance for this country, which is something Janez Janša will never understand.

Mr. Pahor!

Since I’ve already used the dreaded “R” word, I feel I should warn you about two items which might work against you in the coming weeks and moths and which could, in all honesty, make the prospect of your early political demise slightly more real. First, there’s the oft-announced by yet-again-scuttled institution of a conflict of interest between a mayor and an MP. As we both know a lot of mayors who also serve as MPs dreaded this provision, which would make them choose between their two functions. Your minister Irma Pavlinič Krebs even submitted a bill to that effect, but once again most mayors/MPs voted en bloc together with the opposition, defeating the bill. Luckily, under Slovenian political system they don’t drive you out of office for losing one vote, but if you fail to separate functions of a mayor and that of an MP, you can kiss goodbye (among other things) to the resurrected project of regionalisation in Slovenia, possibly even to your premiership. Mayors will not simply give away the vast powers they’ve accumulated over the years and fighting the same people on municipal as well as state level can be tiresome and can lead to a political disaster.

And finally, the new draft law on RTV Slovenia. I have yet to read it carefully and write on it, but from what I know and have read about it, the draft does not sound like a good idea. You promised a Slovene version of BBC, but what minister Majda Širca is suggesting is a far cry from it.

Prime Minister!

Unlike last year, there is little advice on how to go about your business. To be completely honest, I’d hate to be in your position these days. But fact of the matter is that you spent most of the last year making life difficult for yourself, rather than trying to invest your political capital into one or more projects and reap rewards in the election year.

Instead you – as noted above – spent your breath on trivial matters, such as your now infamous statement that you will clean out footballers’ playing shoes if they qualify to World Cup 2010 in South Africa. They qualified, your own PR service taped the cleaning process and suddenly this became the issue of the day. I agree that football itself is far from trivial, but your promise was. And yet you made it, stuck by it and got good copy for it, not in the least on the pages of the Los Angeles Times. A lot of people saw this as keeping your promise, I see it primarily as too quick a statement which came back to haunt you just because you spoke to soon.

So, my advice (insofar as I can give any) would be to quote Elvis and say: a little less conversation, a little more action please. Oh, and numbers. Gotta be good with numbers. Work on that, please…

Sincerely yours,

pengovsky

They say a picture is a thousand words. So here you have it, in 16,000 words, Ljubljana yesterday night, after winning 1-0 against Russia and qualifying for 2010 World Cup finals in South Africa.

All images courtesy The Firm™, photos from Maribor by rollo tomassi

The moment of truth has finally arrived. Slovenia plays Russia tonight in the second and final leg of additional qualifiers for Football World Cup 2010 in South Africa. The first leg way played Saturday last in Moscow and Slovenia lost narrowly 2-1, after (admittedly) being the lesser team for most of the game. But all it took was a moment of confusion in the ranks of Guus Hiddink’s squad side and Slovenia’s Nejc Pečnik evened the odds with an away goal. So, tonight is the big night. It’s so big, that Dmitri and Roman will be coming. This obviously means that Danilo and Zoran won’t be far away. But perhaps most importantly: if home side wins tonight, Borut promised to polish their shoes. Each and every one of them. Now that’s something a lot of people would pay to see.

But in the end, it will all be about football. Slovenia has already qualified to Euro 2000 finals and World Cup 2002 in Japan and Korea. Facilitating this were some of the most amazing goals ever seen. Goals, which for a moment made people think that God really exists. And that she roots for Slovenia.

“David Beckham, where are you now?!” (Eurosport comentator during Slovenia v. Ukraine qualifier)

The first anniversary of Borut Pahor’s government is fast approaching and the media is appropriately teeming with analysis. Pengovsky will chip in his two eurocents later in the week, but given the interest in the post about the new family code, I think I should bring my esteemed readership up to speed on the issue.

(source)

After the code was drafted, it was submitted to public debate, which did precious little to either calm the fears of those who oppose the new law, or to let those who support it be heard. It was as if everybody just threw away their ponchos and turned out to be armed to their teeth. The opponents’ arguments remained basically the same: family is a union of a man and a woman with one or more children, having it any other way means hurting the kids. The supporters, however, claim that expanding the definition of a family (including but not limited to homosexual couples) will be beneficial to children.

Admittedly, the debate on this 266-pages-long document (font-size 11, Slovene only) was overshadowed by the debate on Pahor-Kosor agreement, which might have something to do with the fact that both camps dug in and are holding fast. But fact of the matter is that the debate went sour predictably fast and that although there seems to have been some initial goodwill on behalf on proponents of the legislation on actually hearing the other side, it dwindled before you can say “adoption by same-sex couples”.

This basically leaves the project in the hands of the coalition, which will probably have to resort to its majority in the parliament and give up hope on reaching at least partial some sort of consensus with the opposition. The latter would probably say that it would support the new code if the same-sex provision were stricken, whereupon the coalition would have probably responded by saying that those provisions are the whole point of the legislation, which would bring us back to square one.

Needless to say that the right wing parties (specifically, NSi and SLS) are threatening to call a referendum on the issue, but it is probably safe to assume, that the Constitutional Court would ban the referendum on the grounds that its result could discriminate against rights of same-sex couples, just as it did when it deliberated on the law on registering same-sex unions. Should a petition to hold a referendum be submitted, the court is widely expected to say that a majority cannot curb rights of a minority.

And a good thing too. According to Dnevnik daily, as much as 2/3 of Slovenes oppose the right of same-sex couples to adopt children. Go figure