Slovenia’s movers and shakers

A look at the leading lights in the Slovenian government who will guide the EU presidency and ministerial meetings in the months to come.

Janez Janša - prime minister

Janez Janša became Slovenia’s prime minister in November 2004 and though he held cabinet posts for just two stints prior to that, he has been involved in politics for much of his adult life. He was actively involved in the communist party’s youth wing during his early days in the defence ministry but critical writing in outspoken publications of the then Yugoslav regime harmed his career.

Involvement in drawing up a draft constitution for the country saw Janša arrested and jailed in 1988 in a high security prison. After the first free elections held in Slovenia in 1990, he was appointed defence minister - a post in which he played a pivotal role in guiding the country through the ten-day war with the Yugoslav People’s Army.

In 1994, Janša was dismissed from his government post because of ideological divides with Janez Drnovšek, the then prime minister. He returned to the defence ministry in 2000 during the short-lived government of Andrej Bajuk, but for much of the time he led a centre-right opposition to the dominant ruling party, the centre-left Liberal Democracy of Slovenia.

The 2004 elections catapulted Janša’s Slovenian Democratic Party into government as the leading coalition partner. But the victory of the opposition-backed candidate, Danilo Türk, in last month’s presidential elections prompted Janša to call a vote of confidence in his government after claiming that opposition criticism "has impeded" his cabinet’s preparations for taking over the EU presidency. He was particularly incensed by a petition signed in September and October by 570 journalists and sent to all EU governments, accusing him of censorship and political pressure.

Janša’s government won the vote but a bigger test will come next autumn when a general election will be held.

Andrej Vizjak - economics minister

After the prime minister and the foreign minister (see Profile page), Andrej Vizjak will have one of the tougher jobs during the Slovenian presidency, having to reach agreement on the energy market package and advance discussions on a new regulatory regime for telecoms.

The presidency needs to make major progress on the energy liberalisation package by the end of its term in June. The package is strongly opposed by France and Germany because of its intention to break up energy sector giants or at least loosen their control over transmission networks. No one expects the Slovenes to wrap up the negotiations by the summer but they need to make headway on some of the most contentious issues.

Vizjak certainly has the technical background to cope with the challenges of chairing the transport, telecoms and energy ministers’ Councils. He is an electrical engineer by training and worked as a researcher in computer automation of industrial processes. In 2000 he became state secretary for employment at the ministry for labour, family and social affairs. He was elected to the National Assembly in 2000 and was head of the Social Democratic Party of Slovenia group of parliamentarians. In 2002 he was elected mayor of Brežice and became economics minister in December 2004.

Janez Lenarcic - state secretary for European affairs

Lenarcic was appointed as state secretary for European affairs in May 2006 and took on responsibility for preparations for Slovenia’s presidency of the EU at the same time. During the presidency he will be in charge of co-operation between the presidency of the Council and the European Parliament. A fluent speaker of both English and French, Lenarcic joined the Slovenian foreign ministry in 1992 where he worked on international economic relations. In 1994 he was posted to Slovenia’s representation to the United Nations in New York where he was the alternate representative on the Security Council. He returned to the Slovenian foreign ministry in 2000 and in 2001 he was promoted to adviser to then prime minister Janez Drnovšek. In 2002 he was appointed as state secretary and alternate member to the EU Convention which produced the constitutional treaty, the first draft of the Treaty of Lisbon.

A year later he was appointed ambassador to the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Vienna. After he became state secretary for EU affairs, he was appointed, in December last year, as the prime minister’s special representative to the talks on drafting the Lisbon treaty.

Igor Sencar - permanent representative

One of the youngest ambassadors to the EU, Sencar, who is married to finance minister Andrej Bajuk’s daughter, has an impressive track-record in EU affairs and politics, having worked in the EU affairs section of Slovenia’s foreign ministry in the run-up to membership and having followed institutional affairs.

Armed with degrees in economics and engineering from Ljubljana University, he joined Telekom Slovenia in 1990 but left three years later to work for the department for European integration at the ministry of foreign affairs. From 1997 Sencar worked for the committee for European affairs at the Slovenian National Assembly until 2000 when he had a brief stint as chief of staff to Andrej Bajuk, the then prime minister, during his six-months in office.

After returning to the foreign ministry’s EU unit in 2001, Sencar got his first Brussels posting at Slovenia’s mission to the EU in 2002, working on the Convention which produced the constitutional treaty, the first draft of the Treaty of Lisbon. In 2003 he was promoted to minister at the mission and worked as an assistant to Alojz Peterle, Slovenia’s representative on the Convention, and then on the intergovernmental conference which agreed the final version of the constitution. In 2004, Sencar was appointed as Slovenia’s representative on the political and security committee, which deals with military and security matters. A year later he was made permanent representative to the EU. Sencar is a softly-spoken man whose unassuming external appearance hides a wry sense of humour. He has a young family, a six-year-old daughter and a two-year-old son, who probably will not see much of their father over the next six months, given his heavy workload.

Janez Podobnik - environment minister

Janez Podobnik, Slovenia’s environment minister, has a personal interest in global warming. The minister is a keen skier and was born in the ski resort of Cerkno, which like many European ski resorts is threatened by climate change. In February this year Podobnik joined his British and Spanish counterparts in calling for the EU to cut its carbon emissions by 20% by 2020 and go to 30% if other countries agreed - one month before these targets were backed at the spring EU summit.

Podobnik took up his post as minister for the environment and spatial planning when the centre-right government came into power in 2004. This ended a short-lived career as an MEP. Podobnik was elected to the European Parliament in May 2004 and served just a few months before he was called to the national government. His time as an MEP is perhaps most remembered for a diplomatic row with Croatia, than for any of his work on the Parliament’s committee on regional policy, transport and tourism. Podobnik was one of two parliamentarians arrested by Croatian police in a diplomatic spat over the Croatian-Slovenian border in June 2004.

He is a member of the Slovenian People’s Party and like many in this party he came up through regional politics, serving as mayor of Idrija and Cerkno before being elected to the National Assembly in 1992. Before he turned to politics, he was a doctor.

Andrej Bajuk - finance minister

Andrej Bajuk, Slovenia’s finance minister, is the man credited with guiding Slovenia towards being the first of those member states that joined the EU in 2004 to join the eurozone in January this year. Leader of New Slovenia, the junior partner in the coalition government, the 64-year-old entered politics just seven years ago when he returned to the country his family had fled when he was just one year-old. As opponents of the communist movement resisting the Italian and German occupation during the Second World War, the Bajuks were one of a number of Slovenes who moved to Argentina after the communist take-over. He studied and worked in France and the US, notably at the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank, before returning to Slovenia in 2000. After the government fell in May that year, Bajuk became prime minister of a centre-right coalition which held power for just six months. Elections in 2004 saw a swing to the centre-right parties, with New Slovenia in pole position to join government. As finance minister Bajuk has lowered national spending and made changes to the tax system, though he has been criticised for being slow to privatise state industries.

Dragutin Mate - interior minister

Much of the career of Dragutin Mate, Slovenia’s interior minister, was spent in the civil service. He was a teacher for a brief stint in 1989 before joining the ministry of defence the following year. There he worked in the counter-intelligence division and as an advisor for the international co-operation office before being posted to Bosnia and Herzegovina to work in the military and diplomatic corps. Mate returned to Slovenia in 2000 to head up the ministry of defence’s personnel office.

He became close to Janez Janša, the current prime minister, when Janša was defence minister in 1990-94 and again in 2000. Mate’s appointment as interior minister in 2004, when Janša took office, would have surprised many because he was politically unknown and had never been elected. He is considered one of Janša’s most trusted allies in the cabinet and has steered the ministry through some difficulties, including a border incursion last year by Croatia. Outside Slovenia he is known for pushing for an early lifting of the Schengen borders, especially during negotiations last year when it looked like the expansion could be delayed significantly.

A look at the leading lights in the Slovenian government who will guide the EU presidency and ministerial meetings in the months to come.