By: Gal Kovač (Nova24TV.si)
On the occasion of the almost one-year anniversary of Robert Golob’s government’s oath, a press conference of three coalition representatives was held. They proclaimed “a normal country” as their greatest achievement before the Slovenian public, similar to Miro Cerar who, years ago, cited “political stability” as his greatest achievement. When asked by journalists about how they would address some fundamental problems in Slovenian society, they did not provide substantive answers.
“When people entrusted us to take over the government (…), the main promise and the main desire of the people was to live in a normal country again. That is the first promise we fulfilled,” said the Prime Minister at the beginning of the press conference.
Usurpation of the public broadcaster is an achievement
During the review of their work so far, they particularly highlighted their achievement in the field of the cultural struggle, which is the usurpation of the public broadcaster through an amendment to the RTV Act. This amendment, following a controversial decision by the Constitutional Court, enabled the unlawful removal of the lawfully appointed management of the institution. The government representatives see their actions within the framework of “liberating the media”. However, the actual intention behind these words was revealed by the Prime Minister himself, who admitted that he made a mistake by not first “liberating” the public institution and then “depoliticising” it.
Inflation is eating away at citizens
During the press conference, the Prime Minister also announced the monitoring of prices of food items throughout the entire supply chain, as he believes that food prices are unfairly high, especially compared to prices outside Slovenia, where prices are already declining. “The growth has stopped in Europe, unfortunately not yet in Slovenia. Today, a regulation on monitoring food and product prices throughout the entire chain was signed. From the farmer to the merchant,” said the Prime Minister.
Golob had already presented a similar idea at the beginning of his mandate. Professional organisations quickly pointed out numerous methodological problems, such as the selection of basic items and producers, as well as the moral problem. Food sellers serve different social groups with different options. The moral problem of such “price monitoring” is to publicly expose and shame individual sellers, despite the fact that pricing policy is their right, and the consequences of it are reflected in the financial statements at the end of the year.
The task of monitoring the prices of basic items was then entrusted to a private company, and the results of its findings contradicted the findings of the Statistical Office. Golob’s courtier of price monitoring, in fact, reported a decrease in the prices of food items, while the Statistical Office reported a severe inflation in food prices. The price of food and energy significantly contributed to high inflation last year.
Promised housing will not be provided
The representative of the far-left party Levica, Luka Mesec, marked the establishment of the Ministry for Solidarity Future as the party’s greatest success, according to STA. In the party, they announced a drastic increase in housing construction to solve the severe housing crisis faced by young people. Shortly after taking office, they significantly reduced the number of planned constructed apartments, and today, most of the constructions are announced for after the end of their mandate. You can read more about it HERE. As another major achievement, Mesec mentioned the preparation of the Long-Term Care Act. However, they effectively abolished it after it was passed by the government led by Janez Janša. In recent days, we have witnessed intensive media efforts to present long-term care as a project of the Levica party. Read more HERE.
Amnesty for violent offenders presented as a success
Foreign Minister and President of the Social Democrats (SD), Tanja Fajon, presented the achievements of the ministers from her party. One of the major successes she mentioned was the “amnesty” for violent offenders and deliberate violators of laws during the previous government’s time. Regarding Slovenia’s candidacy for a non-permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council, she said that Slovenia has done everything it can to secure a seat in the most important international organisation. As for the success of Slovenia’s candidacy, she said she was “cautiously optimistic”. In pro-government media, there has been an increasing number of reports lately that prepare the Slovenian public for a potential failure of the candidacy, while trying to blame the opposition, which bears no responsibility. You can read about how government representatives are trying to shift responsibility to the opposition in an article titled “Have the excuses for Slovenia’s candidacy for the UN Security Council already begun in case of failure?”
What all three party representatives have in common after the first year of governance is undoubtedly that they have not presented a single achievement of the government that would improve the quality of life for Slovenian men and women. However, they are extremely proud of revanchism and ideological poisoning, from which only non-governmental organisations and the privileged benefit.