By: Sara Bertoncelj
On Thursday, the EU Court of Justice in Luxembourg ruled that Slovenia breached its obligations of loyal cooperation with the Union, by failing to properly cooperate with the European Central Bank (ECB), in order to remedy the unlawful consequences of the non-cooperation. Namely, Slovenia breached the principle of inviolability of the Union’s archives by unilaterally seizing documents that are part of the ECB ‘s archives, the EU Court ruled.
The European Commission filed the lawsuit in April last year, and in the lawsuit, the Slovenian authorities were accused of violating the inviolability of the archives of the European Central Bank (ECB) which is guaranteed by the Protocol on Privileges and Immunities in the EU, with its criminal investigation in connection with the bank bailout, in July 2016. and EU immunities. For the Slovenian side, this allegation constitutes an inadmissible interference in the national pre-trial proceedings. The Slovenian side has always rejected the allegation that it violated the duties of loyal cooperation with the seizure of ECB documents as part of the investigation.
Withdrawal of the lawsuit is possible up until the verdict is pronounced, but so far, there is no indication of that happening. The chairman of the commission, Ursula von der Leyen, confirmed her willingness to establish a dialogue this summer when the Prime Minister Janez Janša asked her under what conditions the commission would be prepared to withdraw the lawsuit, but nothing happened after that. This seems to be another international defeat of Slovenia, which happened because of Miro Cerar’s government.
Let us remind you that at the time, the Minister of Foreign Affairs was none other than the current KUL coalition’s candidate for the position of Prime Minister, Karl Erjavec. This is the third defeat for Slovenia this year, in September, we lost in the Teran case, and at the beginning of the year, in the arbitration ruling.