Both the European Parliament and the Dutch government attacked PM Janez Jansa, head of the Slovenian EU presidency, after the right-wing politician drew parallels between some MEPs and George Soros. Just as they had visited Hungary recently, now an EP delegation is on a “fact-finding mission” in Slovenia. Although Mr Jansa did not meet with the group, the liberal MEPs were received several times at the ministerial level in Ljubljana, Hungarian news portal MW Hircentrum reported.

The Slovenian premier clashed first with the European Parliament (EP) and then with Dutch PM Mark Rutte, after having voiced his dissatisfaction with the EP delegation on an investigative mission in Slovenia and calling several MEPs the puppets of George Soros in a post on Twitter.

The analogy was widely attacked in the leftist-liberal Brussels press, in the EP and in The Hague for „being anti-Semitic” in tone. Mr Jansa, who heads the Slovenian EU presidency, harshly criticised the leftist EP president, as well as Mr Rutte. Mr Jansa responded to the Dutch PM, who called the Soros allegation “tasteless”, that Slovenia is not the country where journalists are being murdered and recommended that Mr Rutte and liberal MEP Sophie in’t Veld focus on protecting them, rather than investigating media freedom in Slovenia, and he also reminded EP President David Sassoli that Slovenia is not a colony.

Well, Mark, @MinPres, don’t waste time with ambassadors and media freedom in Slovenia. Together with @SophieintVeld, protect your journalists from being killed on the streets. https://t.co/EPvDP7Jlfk

— Janez Janša (@JJansaSDS) October 14, 2021

The EP’s eight-person delegation, consisting of seven members from LIBE (the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs) and one from CONT (the Budgetary Control Committee), is being led by the Netherlands to investigate in Slovenia, with a focus on media freedom. The EP delegation has recently visited several Central and Eastern European countries, including Bulgaria, Slovakia, and, most recently, Hungary.

The ‘mission’ arrived in Budapest amidst the Hungarian election campaign, and criticised (yet again) the rule of law in Hungary, which sparked umbrage in European and Hungarian politicians alike. The delegation with a leftist-liberal majority expressed its dissatisfaction over not being able to meet with Hungarian PM Viktor Orban at the time. The fact that Janez Jansa refused to meet with the delegation in Ljubljana may be a telling message as well.