By: Peter Jančič (Spletni časopis)
“SDS has somehow gathered a few thousand signatures to initiate the process for calling a referendum. Thus, on the very day of the cultural holiday, SDS is beginning the collection of 40,000 signatures to prevent a handful of exceptional Slovenian artists and creators from receiving any additional perks.”
Thus, on Siol.net, Aljaž Pengov Bitenc defended the project of additional pension privileges for a politically designated few, calling the whole affair a referendum on Svetlana Makarovič. He did so precisely when the government was distributing this year’s €120,000 in special awards to artists. He did not speak about these “perks”, which were not even mentioned during the Prešeren Awards ceremony. In culture, money is not discussed – only vile, exploitative capitalists who provide it are insulted.
Siol.net was the first media outlet where the current government swiftly carried out a purge. Pengov Bitenc is a result of that. He frames the decision on a few extra ‘perks’ – essentially insignificant pocket change – as a dilemma over whether recipients of the Ministry of Culture’s €30,000 award – this year Dragica Čadež and Dragan Živadinov – should additionally receive taxpayer-funded annuities worth an average of €400,000, despite not having contributed a cent to the pension fund.
A hallmark of political propaganda is avoiding facts – avoiding numbers. Nearly half a million euros in taxpayer gifts, if you ignore the figures, becomes just an insignificant ‘perk’. I am quite curious what kind of perks Pengov Bitenc is getting paid for this propaganda on Siol.net. That outlet is known for its generosity with state funds. Siol.net has previously paid for propaganda to the company of Primož Cirman, Vesna Vuković, and Tomaž Modic. Additionally, let’s not forget that Vuković’s parallel company was receiving hundreds of thousands of euros at the time from Robert Golob’s Gen-I, Gorenje, and Brio, owned by Klemen Boštjančič… After the government takeover, Vuković became the general secretary of Svoboda, Modic advises Svoboda in parliament on how to politically investigate and harass media and journalists critical of the government, and Cirman’s wife now heads the government’s information office.
The claim that this is a referendum on Svetlana Makarovič or her friend Boris A. Novak is just as deceitful as Pengov Bitenc’s propaganda about “a few perks”. Taxpayers have already been funding their astronomical privileges – Makarovič’s for a quarter of a century. No referendum will change that. In 1999, Janez Drnovšek’s government granted her 90% of the highest pension. Under the new law, which would turn existing political privileges for a select few into an automatic entitlement for an even larger group, her political pension would increase by 10%. In numbers: instead of a net €2,700 per month, she would receive €3,000. How much of that is a political pension and how much was actually contributed to the pension fund is unknown. Politicians conceal the exact amount of public money they gift to their chosen few – we can only guess.
A year and a half ago, Robert Golob’s government also ensured that Boris A. Novak would receive the highest possible pension funded by taxpayers. Under the new law, applying for an additional political supplement would not be worth it for him – he would not receive anything extra. In fact, he would even lose out. The government has pointed out that Novak’s privilege can be inherited by his descendants, but under the new law, this would no longer be the case. The law on pensions for exceptional merits, dating back to 1974 under socialism – the same law under which the government granted him this political supplement – did not originally allow for inheritance. On the contrary, it required a special government decision for any benefits granted to family members. However, inheritance was later added through general pension legislation. That is how privileges work here – suddenly, they become hereditary.
The government refuses to disclose who has inherited political pension supplements over the past decade. They claim they have no records of it. This is strange because, formally, these supplements should be paid from the state budget. How can they make payments if they do not know who receives them? Since the government insists they have no clue, I requested data from the Pension and Disability Insurance Institute (ZPIZ) this week on all 136 recipients of exceptional merit pensions in 2022. If the government will not answer, they will not answer. I would almost bet that ZPIZ will respond by saying that the public has no right to know who received political pension supplements in 2022, especially who among those 136 lucky ones inherited massive privileges for so-called exceptional merits.
The ruling party’s propagandists, along with Minister of Culture Asta Vrečko, dismiss criticism of these enormous privileges for a select few as an attack on culture as a whole. Even on the entire country. Just as criticism of Yugoslav generals was once labelled an attack on Tito’s army, the socialist state, and the achievements of the communist revolution – including those in culture.
The granting of a pension privilege to Boris A. Novak, through which the Svoboda, SD, and Levica government secured him a net monthly pension of €2,695 from taxpayer money in recent years, was signed by Robert Golob as follows (document in Slovene):
The amount is adjusted regularly, and this year it will exceed €3,000. Net. Just ‘insignificant perks,’ as you know.
Instead of abolishing the disgraceful political practice of distributing taxpayer money to arbitrarily selected elites, the government is now expanding it with a law – headed for a referendum – to increase the number of privileged individuals benefiting at the expense of everyone else.
These ‘perks’ are not given to the best professors, doctors, lawyers, farmers, or entrepreneurs. As I have already pointed out, specific groups of people are arbitrarily deemed more valuable and are specially compensated by the government for their ‘merits.’ But this is not a new invention. The communist state did the same. So did fascist and Nazi regimes.
That is where this model comes from.
This week’s awarding of the Ministry of Culture prize (which was already named the Prešeren Award under socialism) to Dragan Živadinov was particularly revealing in this regard. During Yugoslavia, Živadinov seriously angered Belgrade (even though he was not the main figure in the scandal) and was even arrested and allegedly beaten when authorities discovered that a group of young Slovenians had ‘planted’ a poster promoting a ritual of bowing to the party leader and dictator Josip Broz Tito – by copying and adapting a similar poster from Nazi Germany glorifying Adolf Hitler. They had only hidden the most obvious Nazi symbols. The artistic pattern used for propaganda for both Tito and Hitler were the same. The rituals were also identical. Like Tito, Hitler had his youth movement and his cultural figures.
Živadinov turned 65 this year, and the new law would benefit him significantly. His pension would far exceed a state salary.
But there is another side to this: the people who have to pay for it. In just a few months, the current government is reducing pensions for all retirees by one percent because there is not enough money in the budget to take care of the elderly. Wages for all other citizens will also be reduced accordingly. Employers will have to pay an additional one percent contribution for every employee.
Even though the budget is under enormous strain, there is still plenty of money for additional privileges. And for celebrations at Cankar Hall, the cost of which the government is also hiding from taxpayers.
Extra money from ‘ordinary people’ is needed for the newest ministry, named the Ministry for a Solidary Future, created for Simon Maljevac from Levica. He is the one who founded the private institute March 8th, which has no employees, but where Nika Kovač is the director – who also ensures regular propaganda for the ruling party on Siol.net, where the current government carried out a purge.
And she is probably paid for it there as well. Perks for government propaganda do not just come from the U.S.
On top of all this, the government has already hit all retirees and citizens with a mandatory health contribution, an increased RTVS fee – where they carried out the biggest purge in history, replacing the management and editorial leadership to secure propaganda support.
And they will keep digging into your pockets.
Because that is where all these ‘insignificant perks’ come from – funding the massive privileges of a select few.