Prime Minister Robert Golob has accepted the minister’s resignation, it said on the Slovenian government’s X profile on Thursday evening.
Golob must now officially inform parliament about this. The term of office of a minister ends once the National Assembly is notified of the resignation. Stojmenova Duh said in Ljubljana on Thursday that she took “objective responsibility” for the incident in May. She made the comments a few hours before a vote of no confidence by the opposition.
In a press conference that was arranged at short notice, the minister had previously rejected all allegations as misinformation and criticized the media heavily. She herself was only a passenger, and her chauffeur also acted on the advice of a “higher inspector” in Ljubljana, with whom he was in contact during the journey. The blue lights were used when the minister’s car got stuck in a traffic jam on May 26th due to an accident on the A2 near Hartberg and Stojmenova Duh threatened to miss a departure at Vienna-Schwechat Airport.
Letter from the ministry to the Slovenian embassy
The case was made public on Wednesday by the news portal N1, which published a letter from the ministry to the Slovenian embassy in Vienna and the response to it. The embassy should therefore intervene with the Austrian authorities to refrain from pursuing the incident. The minister’s company car was flashed while the blue lights were running, whereupon the responsible authority issued a penalty notice. The embassy replied that the fine should be paid and that driving with blue lights was not allowed.
The use of blue lights is not permitted unless the vehicle is part of a convoy accompanied by police, said the letter signed by Ambassador Aleksander Geržina. In the situation in which the minister’s car found itself, the use of blue lights would also have been inadmissible in Slovenia, he added. Geržina noted that he consulted with the Foreign Ministry before responding. This is led by the social democrat Tanja Fajon, a former party colleague of Stojmenova Duh. The minister was elected to parliament in 2022 on the Social Democratic list, but then became minister on the Freedom Movement (GS) ticket of election winner Robert Golob.
“In line with usual protocol”
Stojmenova Duh denied any allegations of wrongdoing and called for an investigation into the incident. They acted “in accordance with usual protocol”. She criticized the fact that the information about the incident four months ago became known two days before the opposition’s motion of no confidence. The application concerns a controversial purchase of computers worth 6.5 million euros, which are intended for socially disadvantaged groups. Of the 13,000 laptops, only 3,000 have been distributed so far. Just in May, Stojmenova Duh survived a no-confidence motion on the same matter.
The minister’s fate seemed to be sealed on Thursday morning when the two coalition partners, the SD and the Left, declared that they would abstain from the vote of no confidence on Friday. According to information from the Slovenian news agency STA, Prime Minister Golob, who brought Stojmenova Duh into the government, is also said to be dissatisfied with the minister. He is currently in New York for the UN General Assembly.
