Slovenia's president and parliament have been unable to break the deadlock over two key appointments as a result of which the central bank and the human rights watchdog have been under interim leadership for months.

The six-year term of the most recent governor of Bank of Slovenia, Boštjan Vasle, expired on 8 January. Vice Governor Primož Dolenc has been in charge since, but with limited powers, which means Slovenia does not have voting rights on the European Central Bank's (ECB) Governing Council.

Meanwhile, Deputy Ombudsman Ivan Šelih has been standing in for the country's human rights ombudsman since Peter Svetina's six-year term expired two months ago.

While a simple majority is required in parliament to elect the governor, a candidate for ombudsman needs a two-thirds majority to get elected, which means both the government coalition and opposition need to vote in favour.

The candidates are put forward by the president, who engages in consultations with parliamentary factions before nominating the candidate to ensure their election.

The efforts to reach a consensus, led by President Nataša Pirc Musar, have been unsuccessful because the coalition has been rejecting her candidates for governor and the opposition is unwilling to contribute its votes to elect a new ombudsman.

Stadoff over c-bank governor

Before the president even suggested her first candidate for governor, Prime Minister Robert Golob declared in early October that he would like a woman to head the Slovenian central bank.

This was after seven candidates applied for the post in a call published by the president. The names were not made known public, but unofficially the only woman candidate who applied was Saša Jazbec, a state secretary at the Finance Ministry.

After consultations with the parties, Pirc Musar nominated Anton Rop, a former prime minister and finance minister who had also served as a vice-president of the European Investment Bank.

The coalition parties expressed surprise at the pick, having made it clear to the president their favourite was Jazbec. Consequently, Rop was rejected in a secret ballot in parliament in November. Only 24 members of the 90-strong National Assembly voted in his favour, well short of the required majority of 46 votes.

Row turns personal

The president's snub of Jazbec only escalated the tensions between the president and the prime minister, and in an interview in March Golob openly attacked Pirc Musar accusing her of being irresponsible and "not up to the task".

He blamed her for Slovenia not being represented on the ECB Governing Council because she would not put forward the candidate the coalition made clear "meets all professional criteria, and has political backing".

In response Pirc Musar said the prime minister disappointed her as a politician. She argued it was Golob who failed to be constructive and labelled his attacks in the media as politically immature blackmail.

She reminded him that the government was not part of the nomination process for a reason, which was that Bank of Slovenia must remain completely independent.

She mentioned having certain reservations about Jazbec but declined to disclose them publicly, but she raised allegations being made against Jazbec of a conflict of interest.

Media have reported the president's reservations about Jazbec could be linked to the fact that her husband Marko Jazbec is CEO of insurer Sava, which could sue the central bank over more than €30 million it lost in erasure of junior creditors as part of the bail-in of banks over a decade ago.

Unofficially, the president also believes Jazbec is in a conflict of interest because she is a government official and the central bank is an independent regulator.

New candidates invite same response

Earlier this month, the president offered two new candidates to the coalition, economist Ksenija Maver, a former senior central bank employee who now works for the German agency for international cooperation GIZ, and Damjan Kozamernik, former lead analyst at the central bank who is currently leading the strategy department at state-owned SID bank.

However, after holding meetings with the two candidates, the coalition rejected both saying they were not persuaded by their presentations and they were "not suitable for the post".

The president regretted that the coalition should again reject the candidates without "any substantive explanation" for the simple reason "that they 'can' and that 'they are not ours'", conduct that she said devalued institutions.

She is now planning to look for new candidates, where she will "not depart from the standards required by the office" either in the case of the governor or the human rights ombudsman.

Golob pointed his finger back at the president in response for TV Slovenija on 23 April, saying that it was her responsibility to propose candidates and the government played no role in it.

"She is the one who must find support among parliamentary parties. It seems that her efforts have been in vain so far. I wish her plenty of luck going forward," Golob said, while denying that the coalition was insisting on its original candidate.

Potential major fallout

Commenting on the developments for the newspaper Večer, Mitja Gaspari, a former central bank governor and finance minister, said the situation was obviously just a power game "as professional credentials do not play a significant role".

He said the most recent candidates were "absolutely good, and it will be difficult to find more suitable candidates" going forward.

If the deadlock continues, Slovenia could find itself in a legal vacuum. Vice Governor Dolenc can only serve as acting governor for a year. "If a governor is not appointed by 8 January 2026, it will be an indication of political immaturity, of the incapacity of both branches of government," Gaspari said.

Meanwhile, the situation is perhaps even more tricky in the case of the human rights ombudsman, where it seems a two-thirds majority will be impossible to muster, regardless of the candidate, after even New Slovenia (NSi), the more cooperative of the two opposition parties, declined its support, like it did for other proposals that require such majority, even those it co-sponsored itself.

This is despite the president warning the opposition in a letter that Slovenia could lose A status for its ombudsman under the Paris Principles if the impasse over the appointment should drag for too long.

The standoff between the president and the coalition also does not augur well for other major appointments down the line as the terms of two of the nine Constitutional Court judges expire later this year and of three more next year.