Growth is an interesting and complex term, and many people use the term ‘development’ when talking about sustainability. How does the environment fit in with your particular view of growth?

In large parts of Europe, people live well, and they are rich. When you’re getting rich it’s not just a matter of making sure that you’re warm and have food. It’s about needs that are more or less artificial. We change shirts, jackets and shoes before they have worn out.We buy more food and drinks than [we need for basic nourishment]. We drive cars that are faster and bigger than what we need to get from point A to B. Industry has to motivate people to buy new things, and it does so by shaping values. If you can convince people that it’s good to have a big car, for example, you can also educate them that it’s good to have a ‘green’ car, or that it’s sexy to use public transport. It’s all a matter of value systems within a certain historical period.We wouldn’t have enough jobs if we only produced the food and clothing we need for basic survival; so we can either manufacture things that are useless and stupid, or we can manufacture things that green our economy. We can create a lot of jobs, innovation and business potential if we start introducing a new generation of products that are greener, more environment-friendly, consume less electricity, and help to conserve energy. If we’re throwing out perfectly good washing machines or refrigerators, at least we can replace them with greener ones. There are sound economic reasons for greening of the whole economy: It can create jobs, it can create profit, and it can do a lot to save the environment.

But doesn’t replacing one useless consumption item with another useless consumption item that happens to be greener actually encourage the same paradigm of over-consumption? Shouldn’t we focus on using public transport, rather than buying new cars?`

We do both. We cannot say [to people]: “We aren’t going to invest anything in public transport, so you should just cram into these old buses…and leave your car in the garage… and you won’t buy anything new for the next ten years!” To do so is to basically stop the economy. Nobody has to work on anything, nobody has to manufacture anything, nobody has to produce anything, and nobody has a job. It might look nice from an environmental point of view because everything shuts down, but it doesn’t make people happy. People find happiness and satisfaction in working, in doing something useful. So let’s build a new traffic system, a new transport system, a subway. Let’s introduce a new generation of hydrogen-powered bus systems, and so on. Let’s do something that simultaneously provides jobs, salaries and taxes to help the forest, and so on, and let’s transform the economy into something more sustainable.

What is the function of a minister without portfolio in charge of growth, which to my understanding also means ‘without budget’?

[Slovenia’s] Ministry of Growth is looking into the future to make sure that the country is growing. Growing, of course, in the economic sense, but also socially and environmentally, or—if you prefer—growing in a sustainable way. Slovenia outlined a strategy for the future in its Strategy for the Development of Slovenia, as part of its National Reform Programme and within the context of the European Lisbon Strategy and Framework for Social and Economic Reforms. There are 67 measures in [the strategy that describe] what we should do to modernise and prepare for competing at the European level. This office is trying to steer all the ministries in the right direction, and it’s not an easy job.My colleagues and I are in a position of creative conflict, but I would say this is very productive. One of the development strategy’s five priority areas is sustainable development, or sustainable growth. The concept of sustainability is built into the whole strategy, in contrast to the European context where you have the Lisbon strategy—which is visible to some extent—on one hand, and the less visible sustainable development strategy [from Gothenburg] on the other.

As holder of the EU presidency, will Slovenia look to bridge these two EU strategies into one common action plan?

Regarding the Lisbon strategy four areas of action emerged in 2006: knowledge and innovation; competitiveness; social issues and employment; and, environment and climate change. The clear introduction of energy and climate change as one of those pillars is a very good starting point for working toward convergence between sustainable development and the Lisbon Strategy. And this was reinforced last year with the EU setting sustainability targets for 2020. What we’re actually having problems with is that the [issue of ] energy and climate change has become so high-profile that it’s taking on a life of its own outside of the Lisbon strategy. The tendency to place this issue outside [of the strategy] is bad, in my opinion, because dealing with climate change requires a focus on research and development—which happens to be Lisbon’s pillar number one. You mustn’t, meanwhile, do things that ruin the economy or harm competitiveness. Instead, you must feed ecoinnovation into new generations of industrial products that Europe will [be able to] export when the notion of getting greener catches on elsewhere in the world and countries will be able to afford these products. Keeping climate change well connected to the Lisbon strategy is one of the things we’ll be debating at the European Council in March–June.

GETTING FROM HERE TO THERE: Turk uses only energy-efficient taxis, but still believes that traffic is Slovenia’s sustainability problem number one. Photo: Pavel Antonov

Does Slovenia’s proposal that greenhouse gas emissions could still grow by 4 percent, in comparison with the EU Commission’s proposal, fit into that debate?

No. I very much agree that, of the 20% reduction targets by 2020, the most important is that of greenhouse gas emission reduction. We should do what we can in this area. The major problem Slovenia has in this respect is transit/transport, which no country at [a geographical] crossroads can solve by itself. It has to be solved through a coherent European policy. It has to be solved by people who load the truck, and by those who unload the truck, and not by somebody in between. Otherwise, traffic just will go some place else, through other countries, and the route will be longer—so that makes no sense.

One thing you wrote on your blog that impressed me is that the problem with the Lisbon strategy is that people just don’t care. How can Slovenia use its EU presidency to address apathy?
I would dare to speculate that climate change has a higher profile in Western countries than in the poorer countries of CEE. Climate change is not a central debate in Slovenia, so we should, in the context of our EU presidency, do more to raise awareness of this issue.

Speaking of awareness, how do you think that public participation in major infrastructure projects could be improved?

Investments in Slovenia that involve land use are generally very slow to develop. Participation of the public and civil society is quite high, and local interests are very much listened to. It takes a long time to establish consensus, and many highways are not built because [achieving consensus] takes years and years. I would also say that the government imposes very few [restrictions] on public participation. Sometimes we’re happy that certain things were built during the Communist era, when the government could say: “It will be here. Period. End of story!” Today, it takes ages and ages to reach an agreement. There are some ski resorts up in the Alps that would probably have no chance [of being built] today, but they bring money for the local population, hotel owners, innkeepers and everybody. Of course, if you speak to NGOs or society at large, they’re never happy about the amount of participation.

Slovenia is widely viewed as the region’s model of transition to a marketbased economy. Might Slovenia later be seen as an example for environmentally sustainable development?

Slovenia has done some good things in this area. If you look at Natura 2000, we have about one-third of the country under its protection— lots of forests, lots of clean rivers, et cetera. Where we are not so successful is transport. Are we a [sustainability] model for other countries? Somehow, we have been able to afford it. And when the region becomes richer, more countries will be able to afford being greener. What is changing as we speak, in terms of new European energy policies and climate change measures, is that you can actually get to each by getting greener, or by investing into green economy, into green products, into green energy