The government has taken a series of measures in recent years to speed up denationalisation. The restitution of nationalised property is not close to being completed even nine years after the adoption of the Denationalisation Act, a piece of legislation based on the principle of restitution in kind. This has been brought to Slovenia's attention in the last few years by, among others, the European Commission, which is monitoring the denationalisation process as part of political criteria through the regular annual reports of EU candidate countries' progress towards membership. Consequently, efforts to speed up denationalisation procedures have been upgraded in the past few years, resulting in a number of measures taken to achieve the goal. In this fashion the government made an effort to complete administrative procedures related to denationalisation in the first half of 2002.
In addition to several decisions made to further the handling of denationalisation claims, a statement of intent was adopted by the government in the beginning of 2001 as part of one of the latest measures designed to give a boost to the denationalisation process. Stating that faster processing of denationalisation claims is in the public interest, the statement of intent also says that the government opposes the restitution of property in kind only when the law clearly states this. In all other cases the government is not opposed to giving property back in kind provided that the State and rightful denationalisation claimants reach a consensus on such restitution.
Apart from the employment of additional staff and the training of civil servants engaged in denationalisation, new instructions aimed at speeding up denationalisation procedures are currently being drafted by the competent ministries and are expected to speed up the reduction of backlogs. Moreover, the Ministry of Justice is to give an initiative for the courts of law to prioritise the denationalisation-related registration of property in the land register and the issuing of historical records from it. According to another government decision, the Denationalisation Office, which was established two years ago after a package of denationalisation-encouragement measures was taken, should cease to be a government agency and become part of the Ministry of Justice.
Trend of property restitution on a slow increase
The trend of nationalised property restitution has considerably increased over the past year if compared with previous years, which is undoubtedly a result of the measures taken over the past three years to boost the process. However, only 62 percent of all denationalisation claims were fully processed in slightly over nine years after the denationalisation act was adopted, the data from the end of February reveals. The total number of denationalisation claims filed with administrative units at the end of this period was 35,773, of which 22,350 were fully resolved. It should be mentioned that one or several decisions may be required to resolve one denationalisation claim, which is evident from the fact that the total number of all issued concrete administrative acts regarding denationalisation is 35,217, of which 22,357 cases were fully granted. 31,690 administrative acts have already taken effect.
Yet, taking into account the claimed property, the percentage of the resolved cases is somewhat lower, standing at 57.7 percent or 2.647 billion Deutsche marks, the Denationalisation Office figures from the end of February show. Thus, 47.2 percent of all nationalised agricultural land was returned, 64.4 percent of woods, 81.2 percent of housing units, 75.9 percent of business premises, 45.2 percent of building plots, 67.1 percent of enterprises, and 55.5 percent of movable property.
The total value of the claimed property from the end of February has been estimated at "merely" 4.588 billion Deutsche marks, nearly 1.5 billion below the estimate made two years ago. A comparison between the value of the claimed listed property and the estimate of this value has revealed that the estimate of the total value of claimed property was exaggerated. Furthermore, the value of claimed property fell after the contents of individual claims were cleared up by eliminating all claims which were doubled from the records, correcting the administrative mistakes and by doing away with the inconsistencies in the contents of the claims as made by rightful claimants.
The overall value of claimed property, on the other hand, could still increase as it is possible, despite the expiration of terms set down in the Denationalisation Act, to file denationalisation claims by 1 July 2001. This option is given by the act on the restoration of agrarian communities and restitution of their property and rights. The exact value of the claimed property will only be known once the de facto and de jure situations are cleared up, which will only occur once the process of denationalisation is completed. While it is almost impossible to predict when that will happen, the first stage of procedures should be finished before Slovenia joins the EU.
The available data shows that the Roman Catholic Church has claimed the largest share of nationalised property, be it agricultural land and woods or housing units, business offices, building plots and companies, the total value standing at around 138 million German marks. Coming second in terms of the size of claimed property is a person who is not claiming back woods or agricultural land, but principally a company, movable property and building plots in the value of DEM 38.5 million. The third on the list is a rightful claimant claiming chiefly building plots and business premises in the value of DEM 35.7 million. Property estimated to be worth over six million Deutsche marks is claimed by a rightful claimant who places 40th on the list. Most of the cases of the "biggest" rightful claimants have not yet been closed. While there are a number of reasons for the very slow progress in denationalisation, nearly all of them stem from the exceptionally complex denationalisation legislation. The most frequent reasons are incomplete denationalisation claims, failure of claimants to co-operate in the procedure, out-of-date property records in the land register and cadastral register as well as personnel problems at administrative units. Turnover of staff is high in offices where denationalisation cases are being processed. The procedures are being additionally delayed by the fact that more demanding cases are being handled several times at the first stage.
The unresolved cases have been classified into three groups by the Denationalisation Office. The first group consists of the cases which have a preliminary issue unresolved, for instance, when citizenship has not been established; the reasons in the second group are (in)correct and (in)accurate execution of special and general denationalisation regulations; the third group of reasons is related to the right to claim property and to the contents of claims when it has to be established what piece of property was nationalised and what could be returned if the property cannot be returned in kind.
Some other dimensions of denationalisation
Denationalisation has not become an issue in relations with the EU merely because of its slowness; at accession talks in 1999 denationalisation was raised as being discriminatory against citizens of certain states. Opposing that this be an issue of accession talks, Slovenia claimed that denationalisation is not part of the acquis and highlighted the fact that the principle of non-discrimination is not being violated in denationalisation. The EU implied last year that the restitution of property would no longer be discussed at accession talks. Instead, the adjustment of Slovene legislation to the principle of non-discrimination as set down by the EU Treaty would be carefully monitored within the Association Council, the highest Slovenia-EU body supervising the implementation of the Europe Agreement and Slovenia's integration into the EU in general.
Denationalisation assumed another dimension last year when the Austrian Freedom Party (FPOe) clearly voiced its opinion that Slovenia cannot join the EU if it does not abolish the AVNOJ decisions, a series of documents which dispossessed persons of German origin in the former Yugoslavia at the end of WWII. The party claimed that the AVNOJ decisions are discriminatory in nature, and totally opposed to the spirit of a democratic Europe. Moreover, the Austrian government voiced an opinion that these issues should be settled with Slovenia, but at the same time stressed that Austria would not make its neighbours' entry into the EU conditional upon the resolution of bilateral issues. A solution was on the horizon last March when Slovene Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel and his Austrian counterpart Benita Ferrero Waldner agreed in Vienna that difficult issues from the period of WWII and after the war would be examined by experts, namely historians and lawyers at a special conference. Their findings could form a basis for Slovenia and Austria to adopt a special declaration about the problems related to WWII and the period after it, a document similar to a declaration on reconciliation between Germany and the Czech Republic.