By: Sara Kovač / Nova24tv
The editorial office received information that Slavko Koroš, who was nominated by Tatjana Bobnar to be director of the Directorate for Police and Other Security Tasks, was suspected of corruption. He was in charge of international projects, including the Twinning project, worth as much as 12,500,000 euros – a big affair broke out in Austria, house investigations were carried out at the Agency for European Integration and Economic Development, also at certain ministries and in addition to officials, an employee of the local Federal Criminal Police is also said to be involved. Apparently, in the context of this investigation, they also came across Koroš – otherwise it is questionable whether we would have ever heard about his withdrawal of European funds in Slovenia.
Recently, SDS party president Janez Janša commented on the events surrounding the resignation of Interior Minister Tatjana Bobnar on Twitter: “One thing is the media image. The reality is a bit more complicated. Slavko Koroš (a close associate of Tatjana Bobnar, fn.) is one of the key people of Drago Kos and the parallel mechanism. For them, Prime Minister Golob is a transitory phenomenon that must be kept under control, and Bobnar successfully protected the Kos’ clan by resigning.” Minister Tatjana Bobnar nominated Slavko Koroš to be the director of the Directorate for Police and other security tasks in the Ministry of the Interior, but the government did not approve him – similarly to Boštjan Lindav, he was again appointed acting. In addition to Lindav, Koroš is also one of Bobnar’s close associates, whom Robert Golob’s government did not want in the highest positions.
Koroš was previously employed in the criminal police as an assistant to the director of Lindav. He was also in charge of international projects, among which was the Twinning project, worth as much as 12,500,000 euros. The Austrian police stopped this project due to several suspicions of corruption, and Koroš was apparently among them. In addition to the additional contracts obtained by the participants in the project, he allegedly paid himself daily wages and hours because he allegedly attended inspections (although this was not necessary), gave lectures, etc. “They spent the budget money to enjoy themselves,” a source told us, who confirmed that Koroš and his colleagues went to Belgrade to have fun. Even more serious violations were also found, on the basis of which the Austrian authorities stopped the project. According to our information, criminal acts are currently being determined, and we have also sent questions to the Ministry of Health, but we have not yet received answers.
A high-profile affair in Austria, all quiet in Slovenia
While in our country everyone was silent about the matter – if anything is investigated at all, it is probably carried out under the label internal, in Austria the media reported that house searches were carried out, and the target of justice was a partner agency of several ministries. It was a case in which the Agency for European Integration and Economic Development (AEI) was suspected of misuse of EU funds. AEI was founded in 2003 and since then, according to its own statements, it has implemented “250 international projects with 38 partners with a financing volume of more than 220 million euros”. These are primarily so-called Twinning projects, in simplified terms, partnership projects between an EU member state and a candidate state or another member state that is implementing reforms. The projects are of course financed by the EU. The Austrian Ministry of Finance also confirmed that a house search was carried out in one department. The Ministry of the Interior confirmed the “examination in terms of administrative assistance”, and an employee of the Federal Criminal Police was involved in the investigation – 500,000 euros were allegedly transferred to him. According to the answer to the MP’s question, 50 employees of the Ministry of Finance and 15 employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs are employed part-time at AEI. There is a suspicion of non-transparent financial operations and high employee fees. It is therefore possible that the Austrian police came across Koroš as part of their investigation.
With a biased report, he completely neutered the work of the police during the riots
Let us remind you: as we previously reported, Koroš was not a public figure until recently. He recently issued a more than 130-page report on the protesters, in which he stated that the previous government and the then Interior Minister Aleš Hojs did not work in accordance with the Constitution of the Republic of Slovenia. We got to know him even more closely with his recent appearance in the dominant media, where he explained to the Slovenian public that he was ashamed to be a police officer when his colleagues stopped the violent protests on October 5th of the previous year. With the report on the extraordinary supervision of his own colleagues, which was ordered by Minister Bobnar, he thrust a knife in the back of his colleagues to fulfil their mission well. “In the light of current political events, I was disturbed by the presentation of the head of supervision, otherwise my colleague from the criminal police, who was supposedly very dissatisfied with the previous government. As a result, I reasonably have doubts about the “impartiality” and consequently the objectivity of the written statements in the report,” commented the former director general of the police, Dr Anton Olaj.
