By: Nina Žoher / Nova24tv.si
In a public tender of the Ministry of Labour, Family, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities, the Iskreni.net Institute, which defends family and Christian values, received 130,200 euros. According to the opposition, this is a serious precedent, the opposition demands that Minister Janez Cigler Kralj takes the responsibility and resigns.
“NSi strongly supports Minister Cigler-Kralj and congratulates him for his courage and uprightness,” said NSi party president Matej Tonin, adding that Slovenia needs diversity of views and plurality of values, and above all more tolerance, respect, and confrontation based on arguments.
The whole story began when the Ministry of Labour, Family, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities obtained two million euros in European funds to run a call to help vulnerable groups to cope with the epidemic. The funds were distributed by the tender commission among 17 established societies, which address different groups of people, are regionally dispersed, visually different, and balanced.
Thus, the funds went to the SOS hotline, Caritas, the Red Cross, Ozara (National association for quality of life), Kralji ulice (Association for help and self-help of the homeless), the Association of Friends of Youth, the Institute for the Study of Gender Equality, Spominčica (Slovenian association for assistance in dementia) … and the Institute for the Culture of Life – Iskreni. However, as the latter defends family values and supports the traditional family as a community of husband and wife, the “tolerant and progressive work” of Slovenian politics and civil society has caused a real stampede, warns Defence Minister Matej Tonin. “They were labelled as obscurant, conservative, and, of course, homophobic. As Minister Cigler Kralj is said to have been one of the founders of the institute for several years and as he is supposed to help in the institute as a volunteer, the institute should not run in public tenders and be entitled to public funds.”
All funds are allowed to settle an account
In the pursuit of the institute, which Tonin describes as a real “holy” war, a new story emerges in the public every day about what was going wrong with the public tender at the ministry: from the composition of the tender commission, changing tender conditions to the inadmissibility of the institute’s views. “All means are allowed to settle an account with an opponent, including groundless manipulations and lies – for example, that the institution opposes vaccination and fights against gays. Unfortunately, in the public, I did not notice the otherwise important fact that the Iskreni institute is one of the initiators of the Dovolj.je initiative,” Tonin pointed out. Namely, for the first time in Slovenia, the members of the initiative spoke publicly about sexual abuse in the Slovenian RKC (Roman Catholic Church), the protection of victims and the responsibility of perpetrators.
NGOs with a progressive left wing agenda are spending a lot of money. Tonin pointed out the fact that the Iskreni Institute has opened a much more important topic than the operation and financing of Slovenian non-governmental organisations. In 2003, we allocated €166 million for non-governmental organisations in Slovenia, and in 2019 €372 million. From 2007 to date, various NGOs advocating a progressive left wing agenda have received over €70 million from the budget. Nevertheless, the problem is the €130,200 earmarked for the Iskreni Institute. Tonin is convinced that it is high time that taxpayers gain a decisive influence on the distribution of budget money to various non-governmental organisations. “In NSi, we are advocating a solution to significantly increase the percentage of personal income tax that citizens can spend on the operation of non-governmental organisations and abolish most public tenders. People should determine the programme, work, and funding of non-governmental organisations.”
Tonin points out that non-governmental organisations in our country, which defend family values and deal with family counselling and psychosocial assistance, are marked as a threat to society, despite the fact that we have one of the oldest societies in the world and in Europe. “A real pogrom is taking place over them. In Slovenia, the increasingly aggressive radical left in the manner of tolerance persecutes all those who think differently. That is why we must say out loud that these days we are all “HONEST” and support a free, value-based plural and open Slovenia by signing a petition,” Tonin emphasises.
