The government has sped up preparations for Slovenia to meet the nominal convergence criteria in order to introduce the EU's single currency, Prime Minister Janez Jansa told the parliament on Monday, highlighting the need to lower inflation.
In response to a deputy question by Anton Rop of the opposition Liberal Democrats (LDS), Jansa added that technical preparations were also in full swing, while the government was also mulling the possibility of introducing double price tags in the middle of 2005.
Rop welcomed the fact that the euro was a key priority of the new government, and promised full support of his LDS, arguing that the introduction of the single currency represented a foundation for stable macroeconomic development. Nevertheless, according to him, this will also prevent the government from fulfiling some of its promises from the coalition agreement.
In reference to some of Jansa's claims about the need for deindexation, Rop wondered what kind of deindexation of social transfers the PM was talking about and when the government planned to present those proposals to the parliament.
Jansa further confirmed that Slovenia's fulfillment of conditions for membership of the euro zone was a goal that had been passed on from the previous government. "It is a good goal," said Jansa, adding that the government would try to continue with an economic policy that would ensure its achievement.
After the handover of certain ministries, the new government team discovered that the restructuring of social transfers, dubbed "the social reform", was taken into account already in the preparation of the 2004 and 2005 budget, Jansa said.
According to the PM, the budget for 2005 was adopted on the presumption that the former government would propose those measures by the end of its term, and that the parliament would confirm them.
A certain part of those measures has been prepared and are being examined by the new government, although things "have not yet gone very far", Jansa said. According to him, the government will try to make up for the delay, but all the measures will have to be scrutinised by the Economic and Social Council.
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