Ljubljana Life

Ljubljana Life Interview:

City Mayor Zoran Janković

by william wagner, march 2007

Ljubljana Life editor William Wagner spoke recently with the city's new mayor, Zoran Janković , to get a better picture of who he is and how he thinks about his work after four months on the job. Mr. Janković was previously well known in Slovenia as the Director of the country's largest retailer, Mercator, but until his recent election victory he has had no previous experience holding a political office.

When did you first start thinking about going into politics?

June 29. That day at ten o'clock pm I decided to run for this position, and I announced this on July 11. We started by opening an office here by the Ljubljanica river on August 1^st, with open doors for everybody from Ljubljana from 10 am till 8pm. During the first two months I had more than two thousand visitors. They told me about problems in Ljubljana, expressed me good wishes, and so on.

What inspired you to run for Mayor of Ljubljana?

It was eight months after my job in Mercator, and during those eight months I tried to find new motivation. I had three different wishes. One of these was with a private company, the second was an offer from abroad, which would have me leave the country and work between London and Moscow. But then I also had a feeling I could find another job that would motivate me and also on the other side give something back to my fellow inhabitants here in Ljubljana.

I made the decision that I could work here for the city like a manager, but with a different goal than in a company. In a company the goal is to help customers, have the best employees and make a profit. Here the goal is to make the best service for our inhabitants, to offer friendly municipal service with a smile.

At the end of the year the inhabitants of Ljubljana will determine how well they believe I am doing in my job and decide the salary I should receive. There will be a poll conducted, and the percentage of people who approve of my work as Mayor will be the percentage of my salary that I shall receive. The rest of my salary will be donated to charity.

That's a very interesting way to get feedback. How would you evaluate your experience on the job so far?

I really enjoy it. It's nice work. It's very interesting work. There are so many difficulties, but that is not important. At the end of every day it's important that I've done what I could do. I open my door to all of Ljubljana on the first Tuesday of every month, and to all employees of city's companies and departments on the first Monday. The contacts I have with everybody on the street and in meetings give me great satisfaction and a great feeling for my work.

After my first four months on the job now, I now know that this is a manager's job, not political work. I divided all of the work into three important areas. The first is to carry out 22 important projects for Ljubljana, for which the most difficult problem is money. For me, this is the easiest part. And now since the election, we started work on these 22 projects, for which Ljubljana has waited between 10 and 30 years. But by now we have 45 projects.

The second part of this work is the relationship between the capital city and the national government. For the last ten years this relationship was not good. In my opinion, both sides, the state and the capital city must work together hand in hand, not against each other. We started with negotiations in February, and now we are at the end of these negotiations between the ministers of the government and our deputy mayors, and we prepared a contract to sign between the Prime Minister and myself. It is important that we try to find a relationship that will mean a win-win situation for both sides. It's not important that there is any special love between the Prime Minister and the Mayor.

The third part, which is the most difficult, is to change the thinking of our employees here. All of us need to understand that we must do everything we can for our inhabitants, and to do our jobs with a smile and without expressing bad feelings. Those colleagues that cannot work this way will leave their positions. I've already changed eight department chiefs in these four months.

In ten days we shall open an office in which we will offer the inhabitants of Ljubljana for the first time in their life the possibility to get everything they need from the city at one location, not at 15 different locations as is the case now. We also set the opening hours from 8 am to 5pm, Monday through Thursday and Friday from 8am to 1pm. So we are offering longer hours and the best service. I want our municipality to become the best, not only in this country but also around the entire region. We have some very good people, but they need support and they need to enjoy their work and to feel that they are on a winning team. They need to feel like a team, and that is the most important thing for a leader of a company, or of this kind of business, to make a team.

Is politics something unfamiliar for you, or have you been exposed to it sufficiently in your previous job as CEO of a major Slovenian company?

You can always learn something new, but I cannot change myself. In my opinion, if you want to do your job well, you have to enjoy working in your office. I didn't have any problem with changes coming to this job, because for me it is the same work as before. Before I had customers, now I have inhabitants. Before I had colleagues and employees and a supervisory board. Now it's very similar but with a city council. It's all the same − at the end of the year you have year-end results, which is a balance sheet in the case of a company. In this job we have the results of our city's projects, and for each project we have an exact due date and completion time scheduled.

Does the City have any plans yet for the EU presidency next year?

During these six months we are preparing some activities. We know now that 13,000 people will come to Ljubljana during these six month of the presidency, and this is one of the points that we are discussing in negotiations with the government. Several months ago we made the decision to start to renovate more than 25 old houses in Ljubljana, especially near Slovenska cesta and in the center of the city. We have initiated a programme where the owners pay just 50% of the cost.

I hope also that we will have a meeting of the mayors of all the 27 capital cities in the EU, as well as all the mayors of the capital cities of the candidate countries, especially of southeastern Europe. We would like to show to everyone that we are well organized and helpful, and that we have a very safe and beautiful city. We are also starting to clean the city, especially the abandoned houses and the city's gardens and parks. We want to show the best side of Ljubljana, not only for these six months, but for all our inhabitants to enjoy in the future. We want our city to be clean and we want everybody in Slovenia, especially in Ljubljana, to be proud of their capital city.

What's your favourite city other than Ljubljana?

I have some favourites, but for different reasons. Barcelona is one of them, also Vienna, Belgrade, Sarajevo. It really depends on what I want I want to do in these cities. At this moment, I am trying to make Ljubljana to be something between Barcelona and Vienna. We just visited Barcelona two months ago and met with the Mayor. They have great harmony between old an new development. We would like to make similar plans for preparing land and locations for new developments, and to have all the infrastructures in place before building new houses.

Vienna is also a important model for us because of the role that Wien Holding plays (with respect to real estate development), and like Vienna, we would like to have our own official region just for the city of Ljubljana. We think we should be separate from the other municipalities in Slovenia.

Are there any other politicians today, either Slovene or otherwise, who you particularly admire and respect?

The first President of Slovenia, Mr. Milan Ku~an, I really respect him. In the rest of the world, outside of Slovenia, I would also include Mr. Clinton and Mr. Putin.

What keeps you busy when your not working − do you have a favourite sport or pastime?

I run every morning, but that's about it. It may be hard to understand, but I really feel like I'm on holidays every day and every hour here at my job.

What's your favourite part of Slovenia, aside from Ljubljana?

I would have to say Slovenia, as a whole. It's so small and so beautiful. I can't make a decision because all parts of this country have some specific charm, from Prekmurje to the sea to Dolenjska.

What about a favourite Slovene wine perhaps?

My favourites are Cabernet Sauvignon from Vina Koper, Rose from Batic in Goriška Brda, and for white wine, Renski Rizling from Ptuj in Štajerska.