Pahor will sign the order on his appointment after a public presentation on 1 March "if the candidate justifies high expectations before the public," the president's office said on Tuesday.

Novak, born in 1986 and with an MA in public administration, currently works for Slovenske Železnice, having previously served as tax inspector at the Financial Administration.

This will be the second attempt at appointing a deputy head of the commission. Pahor refraining from appointing anyone in the previous round of selection in December.

The post has been vacant since Alma Sedlar stepped down in September 2017, due to bitter disputes with Boris Štefanec, the much criticised president of the Commission.

Pahor has been the subject of criticism over his appointment in March 2014 of Štefanec, under whose watch the Commission has seen bitter infighting.

Štefanec is almost universally seen as a poor pick and Pahor has faced multiple calls to remove him from office, but he has insisted he would not do that because this could open him to allegations of political interference with the work of the commission.