By: Dr Vinko Gorenak
I was still in bed yesterday morning when I was awakened by a phone call from one of the reporters. He asked me if the information that Prime Minister Janez Janša was going to Ukraine was true. Of course, I knew nothing about it. Immediately after that, it turned out that the Prime Ministers of Poland Mateusz Morawiecki, the Czech Republic, and the Prime Ministers of the Republic of Slovenia Janez Janša went to the capital of Ukraine, where the war is raging. They were accompanied by Jaroslaw Kaczyński, leader of Poland’s victorious party and Deputy Prime Minister.
Of course, it is not normal for heads of state or government to travel to war zones. I do not even remember such cases in history. Supposedly, a group of politicians visited London in such conditions during the Second World War. In 1992, during the war in Sarajevo, the city was visited by French President Francois Mitterrand and Pope John Paul II. Slovenia did not experience anything similar at the time of its independence when the war was raging in our country. We were overjoyed if our independence leaders were able to meet with foreign statesmen in Austria.
To embark on such a journey, you must be “brave and a little crazy”, said Deputy Prime Minister Zdravko Počivalšek on this occasion. This statement says a lot and more. We can ask ourselves why Ukraine has not been visited by EU leaders, from the President of the European Council to the President of the European Commission or to the President-in-Office, or to all the other 24 EU Prime Ministers. The cause can be found in the sentence said by Zdravko Počivalšek. Of course, the question soon arose as to who initiated this visit. This question was answered by the Prime Minister of Poland Mateusz Morawiecki, who said that the initiative was given by our Prime Minister Janez Janša.
Echoes abroad
Yesterday and today, there has practically not been major foreign electronic or written medium that would not report on this visit. Virtually everyone praised the move of the three Prime Ministers. We should look with a big magnifying glass for a foreign medium that would criticise the visit of the trio. Robin Dunnigan spoke on behalf of the US State Department, praising “Slovenia’s response to the Ukrainian crisis”. Even the famous American TV station CNN did not skimp on praise for the three Prime Ministers. Former NATO Commander, US General Wesley Clark, who could not praise enough the visit of the three Prime Ministers to Ukraine, also spoke. The German, more left-wing newspaper Bild, with one of the largest editions in Germany, wrote next to a photo of the three Prime Ministers: “This is Europe at its best”. The Italian journalist Enrico Mentana (summarised from the note of the lawyer Trpin from Trieste) wrote as follows: “I envy the Slovenian, Czech and Polish people –citizens, their leaders found the strength and courage to go to Kiev, to show support and friendship to the Ukrainian people and their leaders. There is a void left by them, which was left by the other 24 leaders of Europe, if someone does not have the courage to do it, they cannot make it”. I cannot ignore the positive statement of our President Borut Pahor. The above statements say everything and more about the move by the three Prime Ministers. All the main EU leaders (the President of the Commission, the President of the Council, the President of the French Presidency, the German Chancellor, and others) also reacted with restraint but a positive attitude to the visit of the three Prime Ministers to Ukraine. There were also no negative comments on the Heads of State or Government of the other 24 EU countries.
In Slovenia, however, everything is different
As for Slovenia, everything was different. One of the first to respond was SD president Tanja Fajon. She, of course, did not find good words for the move of the three Prime Ministers. She described at least some of them as destroyers of peace and democracy, citing Jarosław Kaczyński, Viktor Orban (who was not in the delegation), she did not mention Janša, but put him in this context and compared them to Putin. On her TW profile, she wrote: “colleagues’ reactions to the visit in Kiev are mixed, from the wrong signal to a sign of solidarity. The prevailing assessment is that the visit is an ally of the same destroyers of peace and democracy, and that this is a farce to forget which side they are on.” Of course, she did not name any individual who would have such a position. Of course, this was denied by Olaf Scholc himself, the German chancellor, who politically belongs to the Socialists, like Tanja Fajon. He praised the visit of the three Prime Ministers.
In a negative sense, of course, all the media of tycoon Martin Odlazek were in the lead. Of course, they saw possible reasons for the start of the Third World War in the visit of the three Prime Ministers in Ukraine, and in particular they saw the visit of the three Prime Ministers in Ukraine as self-promotion, endangering the lives of security guards, the election campaign and more. Odlazek’s Reporter even assessed that the statement of Jernej Pavlič (SAB) was appropriate for the statement of the day. He said: “Janša is a hero for his own pre-election PR with no serious intention of stopping the war”. Despicable and rude of a man who worked in the sandbox when Janša was primarily one of Slovenia’s independence fighters. Our media also searched with a magnifying glass for foreign sources that would be averse to the visit. Of course, they found the Brussels web portal Politico (extreme left-wing portal), for which our journalists often write negatively with fictitious names, at least as far as Slovenia is concerned. As usual, the portal referred to unknown high-ranking Brussels officials (names were not mentioned), who, of course, opposed the actions of the three Prime Ministers.
Instead of a conclusion
It is quite clear that the three Prime Ministers have done an act that will go down in history. Millions of Ukrainians are talking about it with gratitude today, and historians will write about it tomorrow. It is completely irrelevant whether they had a mandate for any promises, it is irrelevant in whose name they acted, certainly at least in their own. Their action will certainly encourage other EU countries to become more actively involved in helping Ukraine.
The reporting of the domestic media is as it is because most of the media are extreme left-wing, it is clear that they drew arguments that would discredit the visit of the three Prime Ministers to Ukraine. I spoke to two acquaintances today, the first from Poland, the second from the Czech Republic. I asked them about the media reports there. Both have confirmed to me that their media is more or less praising the moves of their Prime Ministers to the skies, whether left-wing or right-wing. There are virtually no negative comments in these two countries, or they are quoted by obscurely insignificant media. I also asked both how their opposition parties reacted. Even in this case, there is virtually no criticism of the Prime Ministers of Poland and the Czech Republic. If the opposition parties do not praise the visit, they are at least silent.
Dr Vinko Gorenak is the State Secretary in the PV Cabinet, a former Member of Parliament and Minister of the Interior, a university professor, and a member of the SDS.