Danish diplomat Birgitte Nygaard Markussen was appointed to the role last week. Her brief oversees relations with countries across a 6,000 kilometer stretch of land running from Africa\u2019s Atlantic coast to the Red Sea, a region roiled by war, drug trafficking and instability.<\/p>\n
Fajon was put forward by the European External Action Service, the EU\u2019s foreign policy wing, four people with knowledge of the discussions told POLITICO, but was withdrawn after the Slovenian government raised objections.<\/p>\n
Since taking office in June Jan\u0161a has criticized the previous Slovenian government, where Fajon served as foreign minister.<\/p>\n
Jan\u0161a has claimed that Fajon, a former MEP from the country\u2019s center-left party, was never formally nominated and was put forward \u201cby a secretary who reported directly to her.\u201d The government has filed criminal charges, alleging irregularities.<\/p>\n
Slovenia\u2019s center-left president, Nata\u0161a Pirc Musar, took aim at the move last week, saying she was \u201cdisappointed by the government\u2019s actions\u201d and alleging they would lead to Slovenia being underrepresented in international roles. \u201cThe failure to appoint Tanja Fajon as the EU Special Representative for the Sahel may thus be a small victory for a certain political faction, but it is at the same time a major defeat for the country,\u201d she claimed.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe EU Special Representatives are appointed by the Council on a proposal from the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy,\u201d Commission spokesperson Guillaume Mercier said. \u201cWe do not comment on ongoing national cases.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Danish diplomat Birgitte Nygaard Markussen was appointed to the role last week. Her brief oversees relations with countries…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":136873,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[104],"tags":[2384,211,210,1584,66167,11648,3279,66168,546],"class_list":["post-136872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brussels","tag-africa","tag-belgium","tag-brussels","tag-foreign-policy","tag-janez-jansa","tag-meps","tag-slovenia","tag-tanja-fajon","tag-war"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/117001606085521327","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136872\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/136873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}