Thewesternbalkans
Left-leaning Slovenian Marta Kos (59) is Ursula von der Leyen’s choice for the new enlargement commissioner. On 07.11.2024 she was confirmed by a two-thirds majority as commissioner with the votes of the EPP, S&D, Renew, the Greens and the EKR.
At the national level, she was chosen by the Prime Minister of Slovenia, Robert Golob, to whom she was close. To a large extent, her luck worked because Ljubljana was pressured to offer a woman commissioner, receiving a more important commission in return. Thus, Ljubljana withdrew its previous male candidate.
Due to the delicacy of the issues with which Marta Kos will be charged – the EU admission of Ukraine and Moldova, as well as the countries of the Western Balkans, she received special attention during the hearing in the European Parliament on November 7. Members of various political groups tried to discredit her with questions about past connections with the special services of communist Yugoslavia. The candidate rejected the allegations that she was an informer for the UDBA.
Marta Kos is a well-known public figure in Slovenia, a leader of the movement for women’s rights and gender equality in Slovenia, although she lives in Geneva. She acts as a role model for many women, but divorced in 2018 after 16 years of marriage. She took her divorce painfully and as a personal defeat, but she overcame the negative emotions, which was helped by her career as a top swimmer in her homeland.
Marta Kos is known as an extremely ambitious woman – the former record holder in swimming was a candidate for president of Slovenia and Slovenian ambassador to Germany and Switzerland. During her work in Bern, she met her new great love – Dr. Henri Gétaz (60), senior Swiss diplomat and long-serving EFTA Secretary General. They are getting married on 03.12.2021. Henri Gétaz has a very good knowledge of the European institutions and the Brussels mechanisms of power. Because of his wife’s new post, the former Swiss secretary of state was forced to give up his second career as a consultant to avoid a conflict of interest. So the experienced and discreet Swiss “Mr. Europe” will have enough time to help his wife.
In 2020 M. Kos ends her ambassadorial mandate in Bern due to accusations of mobbing, which was investigated by the Slovenian MFA. There were similar accusations during her stay in Berlin. Interestingly, in an interview with the Slovenian magazine Diplomacy and Commerce Slovenia on April 15, 2024, she stated: “For the ambassador: It’s very important to connect with your team. The fluctuation of the employees at the diplomatic mission is very high, therefore it is very important for taking care of the good spirit on one hand and getting the job done on the other.” This is an eloquent example of the gap between words and deeds, characteristic and for the Brussels bureaucracy.
The views of M. Kos on EU enlargement do not go beyond the current positions of Josep Borrell. According to the future European Commissioner, official Brussels is changing the rules of behavior towards the countries that are on the way to membership, so that in the coming months there will be no more “looking through the fingers”. It is noted that “reforms and the adoption of European standards in their full form are key, and the rule of law is a priority.”
With regard to the candidate countries of the Western Balkans, a focus on value-based enlargement should be expected from Marta Kos. “I firmly believe that we can only accept members who respect European values,” said Kos during the hearing in the European Parliament on November 7 and emphasized several times that the process should be “performance-based”. Kos did not go into detail at all regarding the economic benefits for the Western Balkans of accession.
Kos expressed the view that there was a “real chance” of concluding negotiations with at least two candidate countries by 2029, in particular with “Montenegro by the end of 2026 and Albania by 2027”.
Preferential treatment from M. Kos can be expected to the Balkan countries radiating strong female leaders. The accusations against her for cooperation with the Yugoslav UDBA will hardly be forgotten in the Western Balkan countries, where compromising is often used along these lines. The tough tone on candidate countries that do not implement reforms will not go down well with countries such as Serbia, which has been criticized for its foreign policy orientation.
In her future work as Commissioner for Enlargement, Marta Kos will stick to pragmatism and negotiation mechanisms. Marta Kos supports Ukraine’s membership in the EU, but has also made a conciliatory statement regarding Russia (“We must be critical toward Russia, but we must not close our doors toward Russia”). It is expected that she will maintain active negotiations with Ukraine, and may also use informal trade dialogue mechanisms. Kos stressed that support for Ukraine would be a central element of her work, drawing on existing EU positions on the accession process.
The experience of her diplomatic career will certainly be of benefit to her expected diplomatic and dialogic approach in carrying out her tasks as Commissioner for Enlargement. At the same time, it will be difficult for her to get out of the rhetoric of the Brussels theater of enlargement.
As a PR expert and former lobbyist, Kos stressed the need for a comprehensive new communications strategy to highlight the benefits of the enlargement process. It is expected that she will focus mainly on what she is good at – PR activities and contacts with influential personalities. In 5 years, these contacts can be very useful for her business activity, and they can also help her husband to realize his consulting career after all.
Kos is opposed to the inclusion of new bilateral disputes in the accession process. But asked about the dispute between Bulgaria and North Macedonia, she stated that renegotiating the negotiating framework, which was proposed by the current government of North Macedonia, is not realistic.
