Slovenia’s PM Facing Increased EU Scrutiny

Slovenia’s prime minister, Janez Janša, is facing increasing pressure from the European Union as his country is poised to take over the European Council presidency. For one, he is alleged to be obstructing the work of the Office of the European Public Prosecutor (EPPO), a new EU office whose mission is to tackle corruption, by holding up the nominations of Slovenia’s participating prosecutors, who in the past have been involved in investigating Janša’s own assets.

It all adds up to a very embarrassing situation before Slovenia assumes the European Council presidency, observes one MEP.

Meanwhile, the FT has recently reported that Slovenia’s prime minister appears to be following the path of the Hungarian government towards authoritarianism, with the country’s auditor general quoted as having been the victim of a smear campaign in the Slovenian press following his investigation of government procurement of pandemic protective equipment – an episode that observers in the article say is part of a broader effort to censor independent journalism and control public media.

Sources: Euractiv, FT