By: Domen Mezeg / Nova24tv.si
“Janša has never been interested in the world, he does not understand it at all. Janša is a typical provincial politician, maybe good enough for Grosuplje, for his members here in Slovenia, but otherwise he has not yet come up with any idea that could be seen in the European Union as the idea of a statesman of a small country,” this is only one of the horrible nonsenses, which was indulged in by the “expert” Ivo Vajgl. Vajgl either really does not follow what is happening on the Slovenian foreign policy floor, or he is a complete ignoramus. The fact is that it was the government of Janša that renewed diplomatic cooperation with Western European countries, Israel, and the United States, and that for the first time in many years, a high American political representative set foot on Slovenian soil. Janša returned Slovenia to the international diplomatic arena. Let us also remember how he helped to smooth over the conflict between Poland and Hungary on the one hand and the Western European EU members on the other, over the financial package for recovery from the pandemic. And it was during the government of Janša that the Central 5 alliance was established, uniting five Central European countries, including “core” Austria. His mental concepts could be recognised by someone as an alarming symptom of a decline in mental abilities, which does not exactly belong in a television studio.
In the Studio City show on Public RTV, journalist Marcel Štefančič Jr. hosted the diplomat Ivo Vajgl, who, in accordance with the regime’s manners, excelled in his slander of the ruling coalition of Janez Janša, which he does not like. They were joined in the show by Roman Kirn, a former Slovenian diplomat in the United States. “Does Europe see Hungary and Poland in Slovenia and what will be the consequences,” Štefančič already hinted at his evil foreboding at the beginning, thus making it clear to viewers that the Visegrád countries are undesirable, benign, and “befriending” such members of the EU, which are resisting the “rule of law”, is expected to have consequences. And these, as Štefančič’s wording suggests, will certainly happen.
The leader also added that the EU had taken us under scrutiny, the same as it did Poland and Hungary. “Does that mean it already sees Hungary and Poland in us?” he tried to arouse a certain emotional tension in the viewers from the very beginning, to frighten them. Kirn replied: “I do not think so yet, but we are on this path. The situation in which we found ourselves, and which will become the most obvious this Wednesday in Brussels through the forthcoming debate, is, of course, the situation that has been announced over the past year and, in my opinion, will also escalate.” According to him, it is not a question of a good part of the Slovenian public or anyone in Brussels wanting this, but because it is expected that politics in Slovenia will continue in the direction of further moving away from “fundamental European values”. It is a predictable wording of the left opposition.
According to Kirn, this is a question of “Slovenia’s subjection to the fundamental values of the EU, which unites the democratic community of states.” It is a simple deception. The essence of the EU cannot be the subordination of Central European members to the appetites of the “right” under the pretext of trying to enforce the lauded “rule of law”, but must be based on an equal, respectful relationship between the currently stronger and weaker European members, and above all, parties such as Hungary’s Fidesz cannot be allowed to be pushed to the margins of European politics because they do not want to agree to an authoritarian political unification or ideological unanimity hidden behind the slogans of progressivism and false liberalism. In his own way, Kirn also explains the “strength of the democratic system” that the union, when joining in 2004, generously offered to its new members to “implement”.
Vajgl pathetically accused Janša of dealing with the media, the judiciary, the university, and women
According to Kirn, this is a “framework” that the union offers in order to “protect the democratic structure of its own society.” Of course, this is a “voluntary framing”, which is appropriately sanctioned if someone does not want to submit to it. It is a bit of a practice, which is a little reminiscent of the methods of the Moscow International and the export of various cultural patterns, which should be gratefully accepted by European and other nations, as it is only for their good. Štefančič reminded that we like to say that we are not yet Hungary and Poland, but that they are investigating our country together with them, which Vajgl commented on, saying that it is not just a conflict between Slovenian Prime Minister Janša and the media, but that “Slovenia began to be talked about when flagrant violations of the rule of law started, in a similar way as it happened in Hungary and then in Poland.”
According to him, this has supposedly started with an attack on subsystems, on judiciary, universities, on women, “today is March 8th”. Bringing these companies back to the times we thought were unrepeatable,” he already showered us with a bunch of untruths in the beginning. Of course, it is understandable that for him and his comrades, independent justice looks like the annoying leader of an undesirable political option can be imprisoned just before the parliamentary elections and subsequently acquitted in the Constitutional Court, and that the function of constitutional judge is omnipotent and constitutional judges are gods, who may or may not work, and whom no one can keep a close eye on how conscientiously they carry out their mission. A no confidence vote does not exist for them. Here we should also mention the high-profile cases of perjury, such as the one in the case of the murder unjustly attributed to Milko Novič.
Vajgl is a master of manipulating with fear
Vajgl also fears that the government would limit the “production” of ideologically profiled and hard-to-employ social workers and offer more places for science, which is necessary for a more digital society of the future, and which can also create added value. With this the transitional left would, of course, lose the potential cadre, which can continue to be placed in the service of them obliging media, universities, crypto-leftist parties – NGOs and all other support systems that keep it alive, and especially in power and in the budget. The statement about women and “those times” is a completely empty wording and cheap manipulation, the purpose of which is to fill uncritical viewers with fear.
He added that the current government and the prime minister were to blame for the weight of “this issue”. “The media are just a mirror image of a problem,” said the Yugoslav diplomat. It is actually possible to agree with this. The media, especially the mainstream ones, are part of the problem of never executed lustration and reflect a stale image of the pathological situation in Slovenian society and a part of politics that was never aired by the spring thaw at the official end of the former system. It is a swollen, fossil one-mindedness that has never been finished. Štefančič was further interested in what this means for the Slovenian EU presidency. Kirn pointed out the “democratic deficit” that Slovenia is supposedly bringing to the presidency. Kirn does not appear to be monitoring serious foreign sources. Namely, the Economist’s democratic index rises when Janša leads the government and falls when left wing political options take the helm.
During the governments lead by Janša, we recorded an increase in the democracy index, and during the left wing governments, a decline
It was the highest during the first government of Janša, but with the government of Alenka Bratušek it collapsed, and rose again during the second government of Janša. It touched the bottom during the governments of Miro Cerar and Marjan Šarec, and pushed itself off the ground when Janša took over the helm of the country again. Considering this, it can be concluded that Kirn does not know the actual state of democracy or is deliberately misleading the public. His statement can also be attributed to the “dog” loyalty to the transitional left, which he defends with “all four”. Štefančič also said that the foreign media “in a sense intone the level of our presidency. The European Union does not need a quarrelsome head of government who also has an unhealthy attitude towards the unjust media,” says the Vienna’s Die Presse, which by the way declared Janša a Slovenian patient and an angry man from Ljubljana, he went on to summarise one of the misleading records of some foreign media that have recently biasedly reported on our prime minister.
The rhetoric observed in Slovene, left wing journalists and non-governmental social activists was perceived in them. Vajgl remarked on that: “It has never happened before that the country holding the presidency begins its presidency with a scandal that was a widely recognised scandal.” In the statement, it is not clear what, in Vajgl’s opinion, “is a generally recognisable scandal”. He may be referring to the media hysteria allegedly exported abroad by the failed politician Gregor Golobič, one of the greatest uncles from the underworld of transition politics and a favourite of the last party chief, Milan Kučan.
The whole of the EU is supposedly dealing with us? An honest question: How well does the average Slovene know the domestic political situation of Lithuania or Portugal and their relations with the EU?
Of course, this “scandal” will be noticed by some foreigners, but it is necessary to tell the plain truth: diplomats and serious politicians who are actually interested in the state of democracy in Slovenia are checking this, and not only through seemingly ordered biased media reports, but also through other, more credible sources of information. The European Union also has its branches in our country and is constantly monitoring political developments. As for ordinary citizens: how many Slovenes actually know who is currently chairing the EU Council? And how many Slovenes actually know what the domestic political situation is in Lithuania, Luxembourg, or Portugal? Almost no one. And even in the Brussels Parliament, there are much more important topics than the fears of the transitional left exported abroad, which are supposed to get their speakers in the image of some public media. European policy revolves around tackling the economic and health crisis, migration issues, and many other pressing issues.
Are Slovenes upset when a critical, perhaps even biased, record of the domestic political situation in the Czech Republic or Estonia is found in any German media? I guess not. “And I am afraid that this has cast such a shadow on the presidency that it will accompany it throughout the presidency,” Vajgl continued, insinuating his absurd fear to viewers, which has nothing to do with reality. In fact, Vajgl fears to death that the presidency of Janša’s government would be successful, because the voters in the upcoming parliamentary elections might show again that the left is not their first option. In addition, Vajgl further refuted his fears himself: “Let me say a word about the presidency as such: a colleague said that there is a danger that the presidency will be technical. In reality, it cannot be anything else than technical.”
All the foreign media pomp around Slovenia is only for the internal political use of transition policy
“Recently, the Croats ended their semester of presidency, but today no one remembers what had been talked about. And in general, during those 60 presidencies I have listed, I do not remember any in which anything would happen. This is an event for internal use.” Even all the apparent pomp around Slovenia in the foreign media and Brussels is merely an “event for internal use”, of the left, of course. At the same time, Vajgl confirmed that this is an event that the left is so afraid of and which is supposed to only discipline the people, was strengthened by the current government and given it more freedom to dispose of the huge financial resources available and to deploy its personnel wherever possible, destroying the “independent press” beforehand. Vajgl is therefore also afraid of the financial resources that Janša negotiated in Brussels, but at the same time he is trembling before something that every previous government has done so far: it has appointed people to many positions, with whom it could then successfully cooperate. The Slovenian “press” is certainly “independent” only in accordance with Vajgl’s “impartial” regime standards.
“Janša has never been interested in the world, he does not understand it at all. Janša is a typical provincial politician, maybe good enough for Grosuplje, for his members here in Slovenia, but otherwise he has not yet come up with any idea that could be seen in the European Union as the idea of a statesman of a small country,” was another terrible nonsense that the “political expert” Vajgl indulged in and because of which someone could already ask him about his health. Vajgl either does not follow what is happening on the Slovenian foreign policy floor, or he is a complete ignoramus. The fact is that it was the government of Janša that renewed diplomatic cooperation with Western European countries, Israel, and the United States, and that for the first time in many years the High Political Representative of the United States set foot on Slovenian soil. With this, Slovenia returned to the international diplomatic floor. At the same time, Janša helped smooth over the dispute between Poland and Hungary on the one hand and some Western European members on the other, when the financial package for the recovery after the pandemic was being negotiated in Brussels.
Janša returned Slovenia to the world diplomatic floor
And it was during the Janša’s government that the Central 5 alliance was established, uniting five Central European countries, including “core” Austria. At the same time, Vajgl is convinced that Janša’s intention to harm the EU is as it is, as he imagines it differently. Kirn stated that the consequence of Janša’s actions would be our isolation within the EU, which, given what we said – that it was Janša who returned Slovenia to the international diplomatic arena – would be a pure disgrace for the former ambassador. Finally, Štefančič was interested in whether Slovenia would strengthen or weaken relations with the USA in the face of the new Biden administration, to which Kirn replied, “that the “golden opportunity” was wasted, and that he fears two consequences: that we will now, in exchange for a higher level of relations with the United States, give America more business than we would otherwise.”
Frightened, Vajgl added that we would now “buy weapons” from the United States. Kirn added that too close relations between Slovenia and the United States could harm the common European policy. Of course, it is not clear what kind of “golden opportunity” Kirn was talking about. However, this phrase may be related to the slightly more literary-artistic one – “golden times” and thus belongs more to a television programme with a cultural theme. The fear that Slovenia would do “too much” business with the USA is also bizarre, while some normal, market-oriented economies are trying to strengthen economic ties and trade. It is like listening to some Venezuelan central planner or a uniformed man from Kim Jong Un’s inner circle. However, Vajgl is afraid that Slovenia would buy one piece of weapon “too many”, which would be a real disaster in view of the technical malnutrition of the Slovenian Army, as only the Levica and SD parties understand this. Namely, Vajgl does not care that Slovenia militarily cannot count on allies indefinitely, and that we need a functional army. He also does not care that the army with its mechanisation is useful even in peacetime, in case of natural disasters, etc.