Outgoing Slovenian government reportedly blocks landing of Israel passenger plane

An Israeli passenger flight was reportedly prevented from landing in Slovenia today due to the outgoing government’s opposition to the actions of the Israeli government, leading to the plane being diverted to a neighbouring country.

The Israir flight which was due to land in Ljubljana on Wednesday, was forced to touch down in Zagreb, the capital of Croatia, instead. The CEO of the airline, Uri Sirkis, told Israeli media that the diversion was “because the authorities in Ljubljana are refusing Israeli carriers to land, due to their firm political opposition to the policies of the Israeli government”. Sirkis went on to describe the action as “a blatant violation of EU air agreements.”

This is understood to be the first time that Slovenia has blocked such a flight from landing. Last week it was announced that a Croatian carrier, TradeAir, would step in to operate flights between Tel Aviv and Ljubljana, because the Slovenian Ministry of Infrastructure had not renewed the flight permit of the Israeli airline.

A statement from the Israeli Foreign Ministry confirmed that “Israel has made it clear to the Slovenian authorities that this is a completely unacceptable step.”

The MFA also noted that “a new government is expected to be formed in Slovenia soon to replace the outgoing hostile government, and Israel expects a significant improvement in relations between the countries.”

Under its previous government, Slovenia became one of the most vocal European critics of Israel, joining this year’s boycott of Eurovision due to Israel’s participation and indicating that it wished to join the case against Israel which South Africa brought to the International Court of Justice, though it ultimately did not follow through in this regard.

After a Parliamentary election in March, the incumbent coalition government in Slovenia, led by Robert Golob, was unable to form a majority. The right-wing Janez Janša, was sworn in for a fourth term as Prime Minister of Slovenia on 22 May, with the indication that a fully functioning new government would be in place within a few weeks.

Janša, who is viewed as pro-Israel, has made no secret of his disagreement as to how the previous government treated the issue of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Earlier today, he shared a criticism of the previous government by a former Minister, which said that while “they’ve tossed Palestine aside like a hot potato in the end, but before that, they transferred a million and a half from our budget for pensions and salaries of officials in Palestine, while the same Golob government reduced the number of orthopaedic procedures in public healthcare for retirees in Slovenia.”