EditEPP secures special hearing to grill Marta Kos over alleged Yugoslav secret police ties
The group will not tolerate further delays, considering that this is no longer a Slovenian domestic matter, but a European credibility issue
The European People’s Party (EPP) has forced an emergency session of the European Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee (AFET) to scrutinise EU Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos following explosive new allegations of her collaboration with communist-era Yugoslav secret services.
The hearing, expected as early as next week, will focus on claims that the Slovenian commissioner lied during her 2024 confirmation hearings before MEPs and is now in a clear conflict of interest when handling Western Balkans enlargement files.
Romana Tomc MEP, EPP Group Vice-Chair and a fellow Slovenian, delivered the group’s blunt message speaking to EUalive:
“We want Marta Kos to explain why she lied before Members of the European Parliament during her 2024 confirmation hearing. There is a well-founded suspicion that, because of her past, the commissioner is in a conflict of interest. She must answer a series of questions in order to protect her integrity and the integrity of the European Commission.”
The move comes just days after media published fresh evidence drawn from a recently released book detailing Kos’s alleged links to the Yugoslav secret police (UDBA). The allegations, which resurfaced after her appointment, suggest she worked under the direct supervision of the Belgrade central apparatus during the final years of Yugoslavia.
EPP sources say the group will not tolerate further delays, considering that this is no longer a Slovenian domestic matter, but a European credibility issue.
Kos’s office has so far declined to comment on the upcoming hearing, repeating only that “all relevant questions were answered during the confirmation process.” The Commission itself has remained silent, fuelling criticism that President Ursula von der Leyen is once again protecting one of her political appointees.
MEPs from across the political spectrum now privately admit the appointment was rushed through without proper vetting of Kos’s pre-1991 record.
Yet the deeper problem goes beyond one commissioner. Awarding the enlargement portfolio to a senior politician from the former Yugoslavia was always a high-risk gamble. If the book’s allegations are accurate, Kos did not merely have peripheral contacts with the secret services – she operated under the supervision of the Belgrade centre, the very nerve centre of Tito’s and later Milošević’s security apparatus.
In theory, this means Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić – himself a former Milošević-era propaganda minister with deep knowledge of those networks – not only knew about her past but could now use it as quiet leverage in Brussels. Every time Serbia stalls on reforms, every time it plays the Kosovo card, or every time it demands extra funds, the shadow of that shared history could tilt the balance.
A commissioner meant to enforce tough EU standards might instead find herself negotiating from a position of hidden weakness. What began as a question of one woman’s integrity has now become a test of whether the European Union still understands the basic rule of enlargement: never hand the keys to the club to someone who may still be answerable to the ghosts of the old regime.
Caption: Archive documents from the Slovenian State Security service dating back to the late 1980s describe an operational line connected to the appointment of a Slovenian journalist to a German media outlet in Cologne. The files contain the code names “TARA” and later “BLANKA,” which, according to Slovenian researcher Igor Omerza, refer to Marta Kos. The materials were published by Omerza in his book “The Commissioner: Marta Kos as a reliable collaborator of the communist secret police”. The photo shows the first lines of a report by the collaborator “Blanka” from Cologne.
Updated: March 18, 2026 - 13:49
