By UME
As we recently reported, the Slovenian EU Presidency has, so to speak, made a flying start, and brussels’ EU leaders are not mistaken in regarding Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Janša as an opponent of the caliber of his Hungarian counterpart Viktor Orbán.
“No one can be judged on the basis of imaginary European values”
At a time when the President of the European Commission, Ursula Von der Leyen, announced on July 2 that Hungary had been warned against violating the protection of [sexual] minorities under the anti-pedophile law passed by the Budapest Parliament on June 15, in which she declared: “The debate is about the Hungarian law being a minority [homosexuals, NdR.] dicriminates what is forbidden by the EU Treaty”, and at a time when legal action against Poland for the alleged “LGBT-free zones” is also being considered, the President of the Council of the European Union was keen to remind the Brussels leadership of the dangers of “double standards”:
” No one can be judged on the basis of imaginary European values, and the application of double standards is the quickest way to collapse the European Union. “
To assert this, Janša relies in particular on the Yugoslav precedent, which he knows well: “Until 30 years ago, Slovenia lived in the former Yugoslavia, [which] was supposed to be federal. There were six nations, three religions, six republics , two autonomous territories and although the country collapsed for various reasons, it was the last nail in the coffin when some people began to apply double standards. “
“The European Union unites countries with different traditions”
Since the beginning of his term of office, Janez Janša has thus stood up as an advocate of Central Europe and of the diversity of opinion in the European Union:
” The European Union without Central Europe is not a European Union, it would just be an empty shell and we should all be aware of that’ ,
he warned, implicitly supporting Budapest and Warsaw. “The European Union unites countries with different traditions, different cultures, so that everything is based on the basic European civilizations, but
there are differences that must be taken into account and respected, and I think there is a clear distinction between what is a national competence and what is a European competence.
[…] I do not believe in stigmatising anyone in Europe or in the European family, whether it is a Member State of the European Union or its leadership[…] I do not believe in the distinction between illiberal democracies and liberal democracies […]Any kind of democracy deserves equality[…] We try to warn everyone against double standards […]
We are not a colony. We are not a second-class member of the European Union […] We insist that we [deserve]the same treatment…
Yes, there are attempts to treat at least the smaller countries in the European Union as second-class members. We left [Yugoslavia], of which we were a part, because[there] We were treated as second class members
“I didn’t notice that he was missing”
Regarding the fact that the Vice-President of the European Commission Frans Timmermans was absent from the family photo on July 1st, Janez Janša simply said: ” I have to say that I didn’t really notice […] There were many of us on the podium, me did not notice that he was missing. I heard today that he wasn’t there […] We also had specific questions about the rule of law and we gave our answers to those questions […]
This post was first published by VISEGRÁD POST, our partner in EUROPEAN MEDIA COOPERATION.