He said that he would repeat the call for applications if he is unhappy with the candidates for the three-member presidency of the anti-graft commission, adding that outgoing president of the commission Goran Klemenčič was aware of the possibility that he may need to continue performing his duties even after 1 March.

Commenting on the year 2013, the president said it was marked the most by the January report by the corruption watchdog on the assets of parliamentary party heads, which lead to the dethroning of Janez Janša as Prime Minister and the resignation of Ljubljana Mayor Zoran Janković as president of Positive Slovenia (PS) which then assumed power.

Pahor further explained his view that the state-owned NLB bank should be sold in its entirety. If the state retains a controlling stake, it will be hard to find an investor that Slovenia deserves, he pointed out.

Moreover, he said that he was against salvaging the Slovenian banking system by setting up a bad bank during his term as PM (2008-2011) because he only had limited information.

"We only had a screenshot...which blurred the view of the wound we could only have seen by watching the entire film," Pahor noted.

Touching on the European Elections in 2014, he expressed worries that eurosceptics may come to a victory, which he said would be short-term, but would bring long-term consequences.

If the eurosceptics win, part of the blame will be on those who take the commitment to the grand idea of united Europe for granted, the president told Delo.

Furthermore, he reiterated his stance that the EU should move towards a United States of Europe. "Even maintaining status quo would mean decline," he stressed.

Pahor thus expects the EU to continue its enlargement, but also believes it will be divided into three speed groups. Slovenia should strive to be in the first group although this will be hard, and it must not be caught unprepared when it needs to decide about this in four or five years, he added.