How to win? Slovenian experience

Janez Jansa, Slovenian politician, has been, according to his own words, “a defense minister sans the army and the ministry.” But he managed to create an army of NATO model in a short time and during the foreign aggression, ensuring the survival of the young country, which would go on to have the highest living standard of all Slavic countries in 20 years…

Unfortunately, Ukrainian media seldom write about Jansa. Prior to his visit (which came as a part of the project by Wilfried Martens Center for European Studies in cooperation with the “Stronger together” campaign), there was only one news item in the search engine – about the corruption scandal, related to Finnish tanks purchase, for which Jansa had been sentenced to two years in prison. And yet, no news to highlight the fact that he was acquitted by the Court of Appeal, and the persecution of him was recognized as politically motivated.

In the exclusive interview to The Day, Jansa spoke of the mistakes to avoid in implementing the reforms in Ukraine; of who to take as a model for decentralization; and most importantly – of where to find strength to resist Russian aggression and who could provide it.

Mr. Jansa, Slovenia has the highest living standard of all the Slavic countries. How did you achieve this?

“One of the answers is to implement higher standards to be competitive on the markets. If you want to have better salaries, better pensions, and higher living standards, you should be more competitive. This is the key issue.”

In the 1990s, Slovenia has had a unique experience of defense, first during the civil war, and then during the rebuilding of the independent country. What would you advise to Ukraine today, as a former minister of defense and as a direct participant of those events?

“When looking back at those experiences, and also those of some other countries in our region and in a similar situation, my impression is that of most importance is manpower – people, soldiers, and officers. You have to find such patriotic people and help them. It is extremely important to have loyal and patriotic senior officers. Being a soldier or an officer in the army is no usual job, it’s a mission for people who are dedicated to their country, who love their country, and of course are prepared to sacrifice for their country. This is the basis. Such people are normally also prepared to learn, to get new skills, and within a short period up to one year, with the help of modern technology, you can school an entirely new generation of officers.”

But is it possible to build a powerful army on conscription, or should the army be purely professional?

“In the current situation, Ukraine must focus on the most important thing – the technique of defense. And this concerns not only special combat units or those who provide logistical support to the army. Maybe, if you need twice as many jobs, you should use the people who, for example, are not prepared to fight but can drive vehicles.”

Speaking of the staff. Ukraine faces the same challenges that Slovenia faced after the civil war, when it gained independence. There is a need for new public personnel and in a new system of government of a much higher quality. What mistakes should be avoided, and to what should we pay attention the most?

“According to our experience, it’s much easier to build institutions from the beginning, from the foundation, than to try to teach old civil servants, with years of experience in some rigid system, to behave differently. If we look back, we clearly see that those institutions we built from the beginning and with new people in Slovenia, are still functioning best, with higher public support; there are fewer corruption cases in such institutions, and so on. For those parts of the public sector we tried to partially reform, to mix old and new, and now we see no problems.”

That was about the focus. And what are the possible mistakes?

“Like I just said, the biggest mistake is inclusion. If you just change the name of an institution, if you leave the same spirit and the same people there, you are just trying to manipulate yourself. So, it doesn’t work; this is the biggest mistake.”

One of the top-priority reforms in Ukraine is the decentralization, which involves restructuring and bringing new people in. As of today, the biggest challenge of this reform is the communication with the communities and local elites. How did Slovenian government persuade the population to support the reform in the context of the local government, in creating the communities?

“It’s a difficult task, and Slovenia is not a good example for this because we are still discussing decentralization, Slovenia is still a very centralized state. We executed centralization post factum 20 years ago, this was a good project. We established a structure of most independent municipalities and cities which had their own financial prospects and now they are independent from the state. And people recognized this as something that was close to them, and were discussing the forming of the regions. The majority of the population was afraid that decentralization meant establishing new institutions, new administrative jobs, new costs, higher taxes, and so on, which is not the case if decentralization is performed properly. We have some good examples in new member states, but unfortunately, Slovenia is not the best example to follow.”

And yet you have the basis of the reform. What was the principle of forming the communities in Slovenia, what criteria had they to meet?

“The principle was more or less decision operative, so if people in some area decided (and we had established a procedure after each decision) to organize in self-government, a local community, or a municipality, the parliament mostly approved such decisions and passed a bill, and it was established.”

And were there any conditions based on the community’s sustainability? For example, a small community might have had insufficient economic resource. So, were there any additional demands? Had the government checked on whether the communities were able to provide for themselves, or had they been registered solely on the basis of the citizens’ desire to form a community?

“There were some criteria like housing, number of inhabitants, schools, kindergartens, some other existing institutions necessary for a local community to function, but there are many exceptions. So, in the alpine area, we have also communities with 500 inhabitants, not 5,000. Perhaps even much smaller. The main criterion was the decision of the people living in a given area.”

The Day’s FACT FILE

Janez Jansa served as defense minister in the first government of independent Slovenia from 1990 to 1994, and he actually created the Slovenian army. It took a year for him and his team to change the old model army into the effective Slovenian armed forces that successfully repelled the attacks of Milosevic’s communist army in 1991. During his second term as defense minister (in 2000) Jansa worked to strengthen the professionalism of the army and performed the reforms necessary for joining NATO.

Later, Jansa presided over the Slovenian government twice (2004-08, 2012-13). His country, having separated from Yugoslavia in 1991 (the same year as Ukraine from the USSR), is a full member of the European and Euro-Atlantic communities thanks to the reforms. Nowadays Jansa leads the most powerful opposition force in Slovenia – Slovenian Democratic Party.