Boštjan Poklukar was appointed on Thursday as Slovenia’s new interior minister, a job that he held in the government of incumbent Defence Minister Marjan Šarec between 2018 and 2020.
Poklukar, 52, who has spent most of his career as a Defence Ministry employee, succeeds Tatjana Bobnar, who stepped down in December amid a bitter row with Prime Minister Robert Golob over what she alleged was political meddling in the police force.
Although he picked Bobnar as police commissioner during his first term in office, Poklukar took Golob’s side in the dispute, accusing her of “politically blackmailing” the prime minister.
Initially, a member of Šarec’s LMŠ party, which has since been folded into Golob’s Freedom Movement, Poklukar was Golob’s pick for the job and political commentators, and the opposition assessed that Golob put loyalty above expertise.
Addressing the National Assembly, Golob emphasised the fight against corruption as the new minister’s priority, pledging that the entire government would join the effort.
Apart from the battle against corruption, Poklukar identified migration management, and depoliticisation, professionalisation and modernisation of the police force as his top priorities.
Both Poklukar and Golob pledged to continue with the removal of the fence from the Slovenian-Croatian border, parts of which were erected when Poklukar first served as interior minister.
Now that Croatia joined the Schengen Area, Golob promised for Slovenia to “help Croatia make oversight over its Schengen border more efficient”.
(Ela Petrovčič | sta.si)
Source: euractiv.com
