Emergency services in Austria – Minister resigns

2024-09-26 15:05:29

The Slovenian Minister for Digital Transformation, Emilija Stojmenova Duh, has resigned after apparently driving without permission on the Southern Motorway (A2) in Styria. She takes “objective responsibility” for the incident in May and has offered her resignation to Prime Minister Robert Golob, Stojmenova Duh said on Thursday in Ljubljana. She made the statement just hours before a vote of no confidence by the opposition.

In a press conference called at short notice, the minister had previously dismissed all allegations as misinformation and heavily criticized the media. She herself was only a passenger, and her chauffeur had also acted on the advice of a “higher inspector” in Ljubljana, with whom he had been in contact during the trip. The blue lights were used when the minister’s car got stuck in a traffic jam on May 26 due to an accident on the A2 near Hartberg and Stojmenova Duh was in danger of missing a departure from Vienna-Schwechat airport.

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 prosecuting the incident. The minister’s official car had been caught speeding while driving with its blue lights on, whereupon the responsible authority issued a fine. The embassy responded that the fine should be paid and that driving with blue lights on was also not permitted.

The use of blue lights is not permitted unless the vehicle is part of a convoy accompanied by the 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 have been inadmissible even in Slovenia, he added. Geržina pointed out that he had consulted with the Foreign Ministry before answering. This is headed by 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 ticket of the Freedom Movement (GS) of election winner Robert Golob.

Stojmenova Duh denied any accusation of wrongdoing and called for an investigation into the incident. She said that the authorities had acted “in accordance with the usual protocol”. She criticized the fact that information about the incident, which took place four months ago, had become known two days before the opposition’s motion of no confidence. The motion 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. Stojmenova Duh had survived a motion of no confidence on the same matter only in May.

The minister’s fate seemed to have been sealed on Thursday morning when the two coalition partners, SD and the Left Party, announced 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 unhappy with the minister. Golob has not yet made any public comments. He is currently in New York for the UN General Assembly.

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