By: Metod Berlec
We talked with the State Secretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Slovenia, Gašper Dovžan, about the successful completion of Slovenia’s presidency of the Council of the European Union. In the second half of 2021, he chaired the EU General Affairs Council and co-chaired the Executive Board of the Conference on the Future of Europe.
DEMOKRACIJA: Mr. Dovžan, at the end of 2021, the Republic of Slovenia ended its presidency of the Council of the European Union. As you recently pointed out in an article for the Saturday supplement of Delo, entitled “Proud of Slovenia’s Presidency of the Council of the EU”, this was the fourth presidency to take place in a difficult epidemiological situation. Nevertheless, is it possible to say that the work went smoothly?
Dovžan: True, our presidency was the fourth in a series marked by aggravated epidemiological conditions. And yet it was the first to manage to carry out all the most important ministerial meetings and other important events in physical form. It is particularly important that the Slovenian Presidency made a decisive contribution to returning work to normal within the EU Council for the first time since the outbreak of the pandemic. This was greatly aided by the fact that almost all the staff involved had already been vaccinated or had recovered from the disease, or both. Omicron has not yet been widespread, and despite numerous meetings involving fifty to a few hundred people, there have been no infections that would require us to cancel events and quarantine. This was the first condition for us to be able to work well and implement the set plans.
DEMOKRACIJA: After the first Janša government, the Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel wrote a book entitled “Slovenia’s Presidency in the Fire of its Own Forces” after Slovenia’s first presidency of the EU Council in the first half of 2008. To what extent was the Slovenian presidency disturbed by the fact that the domestic left-wing opposition tried to discredit the Slovenian government in Brussels and in the foreign media?
Dovžan: I can say that the Presidency is an extremely complex task that requires a high degree of focus on legislative and other processes in the Council of the EU and coordination with the European Parliament and the European Commission. Labels and political stumbling blocks of one kind or another are not a reflection of fair play and are difficult to understand. The possible failure of the presidency is more detrimental to the EU than to the Prime Minister, as it means that there is no progress in the integration process. I am glad that we have largely managed to overcome all this and maintain our focus on the right challenges. Some of us may have seen an additional impetus in all of this, and we have devoted ourselves even more thoroughly to the most difficult and politically sensitive files. We can be satisfied that after several years of negotiations, we managed to crush many “hard nuts”. This is also evidenced by the many praises and thanks from the Commissioners and the Presidents of the European Council and the European Commission.
DEMOKRACIJA: How do you assess the importance of the resolution on Slovenia, which was adopted in the European Parliament just before the end of the Slovenian Presidency?
Dovžan: The achievements of each presidency are judged by progress in the legislative field and the success of the response to unforeseen events. Given that we have managed to conclude negotiations on as many as 20 pieces of legislation and that we have successfully responded to, for example, the August crisis in Afghanistan, migratory pressure on Belarus’ external borders and energy prices, the presidency was undoubtedly successful. Some have tried to overshadow these achievements with the resolution you mention, but this did not happen. The resolution is an assessment of the internal political situation in Slovenia, which was adopted by their European political families in the European Parliament with the support of the domestic opposition. This cannot be compared to the achievements of the six-month presidency.
DEMOKRACIJA: Well, let’s just look at the presidency. Although much has been said in recent months, I ask you to explain to our readers what it means in practice to hold the Presidency of the Council of the EU.
Dovžan: The presidency means leading the EU Council, which is one of the EU’s central institutions, with the role of chief legislator. It is attended by the ministers of the governments of all twenty-seven members, who sit in ten substantively different formations. There are also over 150 working bodies within the Council of the EU, where preliminary coordination on individual legislative acts proposed by the European Commission take place. Most of these acts also need to be coordinated with the European Parliament, which has the role of co-legislator. There is also a need to respond to unexpected events both inside and outside the EU. All this needs to be thoroughly prepared in organisational, human, financial and technical terms, so that everything goes as it should during the presidency itself to reach political agreements and a coordinated response. In practice, therefore, it is a lot of responsibility, a lot of teamwork and little rest. Although the presidency is over, a comprehensive report and a series of evaluations await us. Many of us will be holding the presidency along with the preparations for more than two years.
DEMOKRACIJA: What are the statistics of the Slovenian Presidency of the Council of the EU? How many people were involved in it, how many meetings were there at different levels, etc.?
Dovžan: During the presidency, around 1,500 different meetings were held at the level of working groups and ministerial meetings, of which over 550 were in physical and close to 900 in videoconference. Slovenia chaired more than 1,400 meetings of EU Council working groups and chaired 42 EU Council ministerial meetings and 4 additional ministerial meetings. In Slovenia, we organised a total of 23 events with ministerial participation and two meetings at the level of EU and Member State leaders, namely a visit to the European Commission College at the beginning of the presidency and an informal EU-Western Balkans summit. Most of the high-level events were held in physical form, after which we also organised press conferences. In Brussels, we conducted a total of around 50 political and over 150 technical trialogues. We also represented our homeland and the presidency through cultural and promotional events both at home and abroad. Our diplomatic missions and consulates abroad held a total of around 500 cultural-promotional and diplomatic events. A total of more than 1,300 representatives of various ministries took part in the events of the presidency. The workdays were long, and many sleepless nights were behind us. I had close to 100 physical and almost the same number of audio and video conference meetings as part of the preparations and implementation of the presidency.
DEMOKRACIJA: During the Slovenian Presidency, you chaired the EU General Affairs Council (GAC), if I am not mistaken?
Dovžan: That is right. It is a council of ministers and state secretaries responsible for European affairs. We address a wide range of important issues and, above all, coordinate preparations for European Council meetings. The focus of our discussions was on coordinating measures to curb the spread of the epidemic and related vaccination and the provision of vaccines to third countries, safe travel inside and outside the EU, and so on. In three of the four formal sessions, we addressed issues related to the rule of law. We put a lot of effort into preparing the EU Council conclusions on enlargement and the Stabilisation and Association Process, which we also unanimously adopted at the last meeting in December. At an informal meeting on July 23rd in Brdo pri Kranju, we launched a discussion with European colleagues on the EU’s resilience and response to crises, and on November 23rd we unanimously adopted conclusions of the EU Council on this important topic.
DEMOKRACIJA: The first set of priorities of the Slovenian Presidency referred to the European Union’s resilience to various forms of crises, economic recovery, and the Union’s strategic autonomy. How successful has Slovenia been in this area?
Dovžan: With the above-mentioned conclusions of the EU Council, we have succeeded in making the issue of resilience and crisis preparedness one of the Union’s key priorities. It is precisely because of our work that the EU today has a better understanding of the importance of the functioning of the internal market, even in crisis situations. We have stepped up work on establishing a European Health Union to help members face cross-border health risks. We have concluded negotiations on strengthening the mandate of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and on strengthening the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC). The agreement on the European Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority (HERA) is also a great achievement.
The rapid recovery of the economies of all Member States has also been an important priority. During the presidency, finance ministers approved 22 national recovery and resilience plans worth a total of 291 billion euros in grants and 154 billion euros in loans. Twenty members have already received advances that will help speed up recovery, resilience, green transition, and digitalisation, increase innovation and make our economies more competitive.
DEMOKRACIJA: The green transition was also one of the priorities of the Slovenian Presidency of the Council of the EU. How successful have you been at this? Is there a fear that this “green transition” will cost the citizens of the European Union dearly, as it is already affecting higher energy prices to some extent?
Dovžan: Slovenia has started work on the climate-energy package “Ready for 55”. At the EU Environment Council in December, we presented a progress report on five dossiers. Renewable energy targets are highly dependent on the interconnection of energy infrastructure, and to this end an agreement has been reached with the European Parliament on a revision of the Trans-European Energy Network (TEN-E) regulation. As the presidency state, we coordinated the EU’s mandate to attend the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow. Thanks to us, the EU spoke with one voice at the conference, and we were able to represent the EU in negotiations with third countries together with the Commission. European Commissioner Frans Timmermans thanked Slovenia in particular. We also responded to rising energy prices, which were discussed by the finance, economic, agricultural, environmental and energy ministers. We helped coordinate an agreement on possible measures to mitigate the rise in prices for citizens and the economy. At the end of the Presidency, European Commissioner for Energy Kadri Simson thanked us for making significant progress on key legislation in the transition to clean energy and for responding quickly to rising energy prices.
DEMOKRACIJA: One of the priorities of the Slovenian Presidency was also the so-called digital gateway…
Dovžan: One of the greatest achievements of the Presidency can certainly be the agreement between the Member States on the Digital Services Act and the Digital Markets Act, which will set the EU new standards in regulating the operation of online platforms. Thus, the rules of the game will no longer be in the hands of online giants but will be set by the EU. This is a dossier in which the interests and thus the pressures of the Member States, large online platforms and interest groups have been extremely high.
DEMOKRACIJA: You have been committed to the conference on the future of Europe, which was second on the list of priorities…
Dovžan: This year’s traditional Bled Strategic Forum was dedicated to the debate on the future of Europe. We have helped to move the conference on the future of Europe from an organisational to a substantive phase. All four European Citizens’ Forums were launched to discuss a stronger economy, European democracy, the environment and health, and the EU’s role in the world. One of the forums has already served with concrete 39 recommendations, and we are still waiting for the remaining three. We made sure that the conference process was as transparent and inclusive as possible. As stakeholders, we managed to include representatives of the Western Balkans in the plenary part of the conference. Consultations within the conference are expected to run until May 9th, this year. A final report will follow, and hopefully it will reflect a serious ambition to improve European policies for the benefit of EU citizens. I also hope that the competent European institutions will then make sure that the good proposals are implemented.
DEMOKRACIJA: As a third substantive priority, you have put the Union of equal criteria for all, the rule of law and the European way of life at the forefront…
Dovžan: It is true. Based on the report on the state of the rule of law presented by the European Commission in July, we conducted the second annual dialogue on the situation in the Union and a debate on the rule of law in five Member States. In leading the debate, we emphasised the importance of full respect for the principles of objectivity, non-discrimination, and equal treatment of all Member States. Justice Commissioner Didier Reynders has repeatedly thanked the Slovenian Presidency for putting the debate on the rule of law high on the EU agenda and for ensuring the continuity of the work of previous presidencies. We hope that there will gradually be a better mutual understanding of the challenges of the rule of law in the individual Member States and the bridging of differences in views on how to address them. Our efforts have been focused on such convergence.
DEMOKRACIJA: “Our fourth priority was to strengthen the security of the Union, which will be a reliable partner on the world stage, able to uphold these values even in its immediate neighbourhood,” you wrote in Delo. In your opinion, you have achieved the acceleration of the preparation of the EU strategic compass…
Dovžan: We have achieved confirmation of the draft strategic compass, which we hope can be adopted in March this year. We reacted calmly to the already mentioned unexpected challenges and ensured a unified and solidary response from EU members. We conducted clear communication and separated strategic activities on one of the humanitarian or social activities on the other side. Following the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, Slovenia has helped to prevent a repeat of the 2015 migrant tragedy. Progress has also been made in the areas of the external dimension of the EU’s common migration and asylum policy, Croatia’s readiness to join the Schengen area and confirmation of the European future for the Western Balkans partners. It is also worth mentioning the strengthening of transatlantic cooperation, as after the June EU-US summit in Brussels, intensive implementation of agreed goals took place during our presidency, such as the establishment of the Trade and Technology Council last autumn.
DEMOKRACIJA: Does this include Slovenia’s efforts to enlarge the European Union to the Western Balkans?
Dovžan: Undoubtedly. Reviving the enlargement process has been one of our priorities and we have achieved that it remains high on the Union’s debate agenda. We are satisfied with the achievements of the October summit between the EU and the Western Balkans, which confirmed the European perspective of the countries in the region and reached an agreement on regular annual meetings of EU leaders and partners in the region. Another important achievement was the inclusion of representatives of the Western Balkan countries in the conference on the future of Europe, as well as the opening of Negotiating Group 4 for Serbia, which is the first opening of the Negotiating Group under the renewed enlargement methodology of March 2020.
DEMOKRACIJA: However, despite what has been said, the prevailing Slovenian media are of the opinion that the Slovenian presidency of the Council of the EU was politically poor or barely satisfactory, and in diplomatic terms good. A journalist from RTV Slovenia, who reports from Brussels, even said that the political part deserves a rating of 6 and the diplomatic part a rating of 9. How do you view these ratings, including the accusations?
Dovžan: I believe that such an assessment can be the result of either ignorance or deception. Without good professional and organisational and logistical work, there is no political progress in the negotiations on substantively demanding and politically sensitive dossiers. We conducted this impartially, considering the key positions of all Member States, defending them appropriately in legislative negotiations with the European Parliament and achieving concrete results. These are highly political successes that are appreciated by the Member States and the EU institutions. With the successful presidency in the aggravated epidemiological situation, Slovenia, not the current government, but the state as such, has undoubtedly consolidated its reputation both among the Member States and the EU institutions.
DEMOKRACIJA: And the accusation of two RTV Slovenia journalists from Brussels, namely that Slovenian journalists and reporters were cut off from information during the Slovenian presidency. How do you respond to them?
Dovžan: As a rule, the country holding the presidency is best informed. Of course, it must not inform the representatives of the national media in a privileged way, but it must treat everyone equally. Otherwise, it could lose the trust of other members, making it more difficult to work in the EU Council. We are very pleased that this did not happen. We had no problems with information leakage. We treated all media equally and informed them correctly. Prior to all the most important ministerial meetings, we organised briefings for media representatives, at which we presented open dilemmas of individual files in advance and answered questions. Press conferences were held after each EU Council meeting. We answered every question. However, it is true that representatives of the Slovenian media were often not present at such events, and even when they were, they rarely asked questions.
Biography
Gašper Dovžan was born in 1976. In 2000 he graduated from the Faculty of Law, University of Ljubljana. He continued his studies in Berlin, where in 2002 he completed a master’s degree in European studies. In 2011, he passed the state law exam. He joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2000. From 2002 to 2004, he was a legal adviser to a government delegation to the Intergovernmental Conference on the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe. From 2004 to 2008 he worked as an advisor for international relations in the Prime Minister’s Office and participated in the implementation of the Slovenian Presidency of the Council of the EU in the first half of 2008. In 2012, he was an adviser to the Prime Minister on European and foreign policy issues. Prior to that, he worked in the Directorate for Economic Diplomacy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In the spring of 2013, he was appointed Acting Director of the Government Legislative Service. From autumn 2014 to July 2017, he was Deputy Head of the Slovenian Embassy in Berlin. From August 2017 to March 2020, he worked in the Sector for General and Institutional Affairs of the Directorate for EU Affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Slovenia. In the fall of 2019, he became head of the sector. In 2020, he was appointed Deputy Head of the Special Government Project of the Slovenian Presidency of the EU Council 2021 and in the second half of 2021 Chairman of the General Affairs Council and Co-Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Conference on the Future of Europe. Prior to that, Gašper Dovžan also worked for the leading energy company in Slovenia, Petrol, JSC and practiced at the High Court in Ljubljana. He is married and a father of three children.