ISSN: 2560-1601

Vol. 13, No. 4 (SI)

December 2018

Slovenia external relations briefing: New government’s foreign policy: continuity and shifts in 2018 Helena Motoh

1052 Budapest Petőfi Sándor utca 11.

+36 1 5858 690 Kiadó: Kína-KKE Intézet Nonprofit Kft. [email protected] Szerkesztésért felelős személy: Chen Xin

Kiadásért felelős személy: Huang Ping china-cee.eu 2017/01

New government’s foreign policy: continuity and shifts in 2018

Summary

Election year 2018 brought a significant change at the top of Slovenian foreign policy. Former Minister of foreign Affairs, Karl Erjavec, was replaced by , former Prime Minister. In some aspects, especially in the relation to the relationship between world’s major powers, this change significantly shifted the trajectory of Slovenian foreign policy, while in other aspects, e. g. concerning the border dispute with Croatia, the attitudes stayed mostly unchanged.

Background: Changes at the top of Slovenian foreign policy

In the months after June parliamentary elections, it became obvious that any potential prime minister will have to compose a government with a large number of political parties. What it meant for the distribution of ministries, especially most important ones, was that the position will most likely be taken by the presidents of the political parties included in the government. Marjan Šarec, head of the Marjan Šarec List was confirmed as new Prime Minister, and the new government, confirmed in September, included all three political parties that constituted the previous Cerar government. In Cerar government, the leaders of the two other political parties led two important ministries, Social Democrats’ Dejan Židan was Minister for Agriculture, while DeSUS’ Karl Erjavec led the Ministry of foreign Affairs. In the negotiations for the composition of the 13th Šarec government, Dejan Židan soon became a candidate for the position of the Speaker of the National Assembly, while presidents of other three parties negotiated the positions in main ministries. Finally SAB’s Alenka Bratušek (also former Prime Minister in the 11th 2013–2014 government) became the Minister of Infrastructure. DeSUS’ Karl Erjavec, former Minister of Foreign Affairs, became the Minister of Defense, a position he had already occupied in the first Janez Janša’s government (2004–2008). Former Prime Minister Miro Cerar took the position of the Minister of Foreign Affairs. What might initially seem like a trade-off between same political parties in now newly composed government, soon started to reveal itself as a seemingly substantial shift. As is the norm in the government transitions, the new Minister of Foreign Affairs also changed the two State Secretaries and the General Secretary. State secretary positions were given to Simona Leskovar, previously Ambassador of to Japan and Korea and Deputy Permanent Representative at the Permanent Mission of Slovenia to the United Nations in New York; and Dobran Božič, former

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Chief of the General Staff of the Slovenian Armed Forces and Director of the Government Office for the Protection of Classified Information. The position of Secretary General was given to Damjan Bergant, former Director of ITF Enhancing Human Security institution and previously Ambassador of Slovenia to the Council of Europe.

Shifting attitudes: Further from Russia, closer to the United States

Prior to the last mandate as Minister of Foreign Affairs in the government of Miro Cerar, Karl Erjavec held the same position in the second Janša’s government (2012–2013) and the following Alenka Bratušek government, being thus effectively head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for over 6 years. Regardless of the different political orientations of the governments as the time, his mandates were marked with his open sympathies towards good relations between Slovenia and Russia, in contrast to another long-term Minister of Foreign Affairs before him, (1990–1993, 2000–2004, 2004–2008), who was generally seen as an open supporter of close ties with the United States. Karl Erjavec was often criticized for his pro- Russian policies, frequently by opposition, but also by media. In 2018 this became a topic during the visit of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia, Sergey Lavrov, to Slovenia. His visit, hosted by Slovenian Foreign Minister Erjavec, was seen as an important confirmation of growing economic exchange between Russia and Slovenia, with Russia being the most important Slovenia economic partner outside of European Union. During the visit, special attention was given to the situation in the Balkans and the Middle East, with Slovenia also expressing its preparedness for the recognition of Palestine. Shortly after Lavrov’s visit in the end of February, the poisoning of former Russian military officer and double agent Sergey Skripal happened in United Kingdom. In the weeks following the assassination attempt, many countries, most notably US and many EU countries expelled Russian diplomats from their territory in a response to the Russian refusal to take responsibility for the incident. Erjavec refused to pursue the same measures and Slovenia did not follow with the expulsion of Russian diplomats. While Erjavec strongly advocated against punitive measures against Russia, other two important leaders had different positions. In the meeting of European Council Prime Minister Cerar supported the unified European decision on the case and cancelled his scheduled official visit to Russia. President was even more explicit on the issue, supporting the idea that Slovenia should join other countries and thus express solidarity with United Kingdom.

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After the change of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs, one of the first priorities of the new Minister Cerar was to revive the relations with the United States, after 8 years since the last visit of Slovenian Foreign Minister to US. The last official visit on the level of the head of Foreign Ministry was the one by Samuel Žbogar in 2010. After him, only President Borut Pahor visited the White House in 2011. Seen as his obvious attempt to reverse the seemingly pro- Russian policy of his predecessor Erjavec, Cerar had a meeting with National Security Affairs Advisor John Bolton and with the US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo. One of the issues that Cerar attempted to address in the meetings with the US representatives was the position of the United States on the implementation of the arbitration court decision on the border dispute between Slovenia and Croatia.

Continuity: Dispute with Croatia on the implementation of the arbitration court decision

While the relation of Slovenia to the major powers is seemingly shifting due to the orientation of the new Minister of Foreign Affairs, in many other areas, Slovenian foreign policy is continuous with the directions it took during the previous government term. Such is the case in the issue of the implementation of the arbitration court decision on the border dispute between Slovenia and Croatia. The arbitration court decision on the demarcation of disputed Slovenian- Croatian border territories was made in June 2017. Slovenia than started to implement the decision in the prescribed time (before the end of December 2017), while Croatia refused to do so, due to its refusal to consider arbitration court procedure valid, due to the unauthorized leaking of information by the Slovenian representatives during the court arbitration process. Conflicts started in the Bay of Piran, especially between border guards and fishermen, who were fined by the authorities of the other country (Croatia and later Slovenia) for fishing beyond the border line. After unsuccessful appeals by for Croatia to implement the arbitration court decision, Slovenian government started the process of legal appeal. Appeal with reference to the Article 259 of the Lisbon Treaty was sent to EC by Cerar government shortly before their resignation. Subsequently, European Commission expressed its willingness to aid with the process and first called Croatia to defend its case and then organized a dual hearing in May. After Šarec government started their mandate in September, the attitudes and policies towards the implementation of arbitration decision remained largely unchanged. In September, German newspaper Spiegel revealed the existence of a position statement, composed by EC legal staff that largely confirmed Slovenian position that Croatia is breaking the EU law, implying that the refusal to act even months after this opinion was written, was done at the initiative of EC President Juncker, allegedly in support to the fellow EPP Croatian Prime

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Minister. Four Slovenian Members of the European Parliament wrote a letter to Juncker, demanding action on the case. In October, Prime Minister Šarec appointed a new head of the coordination team for the implementation of arbitration decision, a choice which was doubted by many, since the appointed Damir Črnčec was known for his radical right-wing positions which were often criticized as hate speech, racist etc. In the legal procedure, the case against Croatia filed by Slovenia at the European Court of Justice, just recently received a reply by the Croatian side. In its reply, Croatia calls for a complete refusal of the arbitration court decision, claiming that it is not in the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice. Croatian position is that the dispute should be solved by applying the international law, without the EU legislation. Most probably Slovenia will submit a reply to the Croatian position and it is then predicted that in 2019 the court should start the decision phase, while the final decision will probably take longer than a year.

Conclusion Despite the composition of the new Slovenian government being very similar to the previous one, the change of the Minister of Foreign Affairs brought some distinctive changes in the orientation of Slovenian foreign policy. Most importantly, the new Foreign Minister Cerar showed his shift from seemingly pro-Russian policies of his predecessor Erjavec to a more pro- US oriented policy by a recent visit to the United States. In the relations between Slovenia and Croatia regarding the border dispute arbitration court decision, the attitude of the new government stays unchanged.

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