This Sunday marked a hundred days since the new government of Prime Minister Janez Janša was appointed on 3 December last year. In this time, it has adopted its programme of work for 2005, while towards the end of February it submitted the normative part of its programme to the National Assembly for discussion.
The ministries have also made separate presentations of their plans of work. The government has commenced visits to different parts of the country, first visiting Bovec and then Prekmurje. The government’s public approval rating is high, ranging from 59 to 61 per cent over the last three months. However, the opposition has already announced that the shadow cabinet will be keeping a close eye on the government.
According to the government’s assessment of the situation regarding this year’s budget, as inherited from the previous government, there is a shortfall of around 70 billion tolars, since a number of essential outgoings are not planned in the budget. The Prime Minister predicts that the rebalancing of the budget – the procedure for which is expected to be ready in April – will involve significant reallocation of funds, a different determination of priorities and a search for reserves, in the hope that revenue will also be slightly higher.
The budget shortfall is believed to include almost 18 billion tolars in the sphere of education (mainly salaries), a considerable part of the funds for salaries in the public administration and funds for Schengen obligations. The planned budget deficit of approximately 112 billion tolars needs to be reduced, since it is very close to the risk zone as regards meeting the Maastricht criterion.
In its response to these statements, the LDS, formerly the leading government party and the party of former Prime Minister Anton Rop, stressed that these are lump-sum estimates and that they are mistaken. In the opinion of the LDS, the public finances situation is better than planned. They estimate that revenue in this year’s budget are will be 36 billion tolars higher than the figures in the adopted budget, while through the proposed sale of additional property worth 2.3 billion tolars, revenue should be higher by a total of almost 39 billion tolars.
In the Prime Minister’s opinion the most demanding goals in the programme of work for 2005 are the meeting of convergence criteria and achieving the conditions for Slovenia’s entry into European monetary union, and the guaranteeing of effective use of resources from European funds. The Maastricht criteria, some of which Slovenia already fulfils, are in the government’s opinion extremely demanding. Inflation will have to be reduced to well below three per cent.
Among the principal government measures planned for this year, particular emphasis has been placed on measures to reduce the negative demographic trend. The government has set itself the task of facilitating the coordination of family life and career, encouraging parenting and increasing the number of births. The worsening demographic structure, falling population, ageing population and the consequent reduction in the size of the active population and the growth in the number of pensioners are, in the government’s opinion, the most serious structural problems facing Slovenia in the long term. The measures will include six or seven statutes and implementing regulations aimed at improving the social environment for families, while measures are also envisaged in the field of tax policy.
The government is not planning the privatisation of the country’s largest financial institutions (Nova Ljubljanska Banka, Nova Kreditna Banka Maribor and Zavarovalnica Triglav) this year, although it is expected to formulate privatisation models. The tax and administrative environment should see improvements. The electronic communications market should become more competitive, while this year the government should tackle the actual liberalisation of the energy market. Among the objectives is more economical public consumption.
Even before the new year, the Strategic Council for Economic Development advised the government to freeze tax reform. Mr Janša stated that though this would be good, such a freeze will not be possible. The new government has therefore only tried to mitigate the negative consequences of those solutions that are unsatisfactory. The tax legislation that began to be applied at the start of the year was adopted by the previous governing coalition. Now a special group at the Ministry of Finance is working in the direction of a simplification of tax procedures. A number of amendments to tax legislation designed to remove the major anomalies are also being prepared. It is not therefore a new tax reform – according to Mr Janša the government will only embark on this after a thorough analysis of the situation, and this will certainly not come into force on 1 January of next year.
Implementation of the Lisbon strategy to make the European Union the world’s most competitive economy in the next few years remains one of the government’s key priorities. It also supports the reform of the Lisbon agenda designed to give new impetus to the implementation of the Lisbon goals, while stressing that suitable funds for the achieving of the Lisbon objectives must be provided within the framework of negotiations on the next financial perspective of the EU for 2007-2013.
Slovenia is in favour of enlargement of the European Union. In the case of Croatia, the government considers that it is in Slovenia’s strategic interest for its southern neighbour to begin negotiations for EU membership as soon as possible and to begin introducing European standards. A drastic delay in negotiations is not in Slovenia’s interest, since this would worsen the environment in which the two countries have to regulate their bilateral relations. However the Croatian authorities must ensure full cooperation with the International War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague.
Slovenia did not reply by means of a diplomatic note to the statement of Austrian Parliament Speaker Andreas Khol that Slovenia is not a successor to the Austrian State Treaty, which some people consider a mistake. In Mr Janša’s opinion, Slovenia today holds more powerful cards for the protection of its minorities than it did before it was a member of the EU, and it is therefore not helpful to quarrel about political questions which do not affect the position of the minority. That part of the Austrian State Treaty that deals with the protection of minorities, including the Slovene minority, does however apply; it is an international treaty by which Austria is bound. In relation to the non-implementation of the law governing the protection of the Slovene minority in Italy, the Prime Minister stresses that a large part of this law is actually just words on paper, but that Slovenia’s neighbour must respect the law it has passed. Slovenia will always demand this.
Some of the bills prepared by the new government have already raised considerable dust. The amendments to the Civil Servants Act, which have already been adopted by the National Assembly, provide the government with the possibility of replacing officials in the highest positions in the national administration without first proving wrongdoing. They have not denied the rumours that, with these amendments, police chief Darko Anželj will be among the first to go. The two largest opposition parties consider the amending act to be the basis for politically motivated dismissals. For this reason, on 11 March, thirty-two MPs from the ranks of the LDS and the ZLSD filed a request for a review of constitutionality in respect of the amending act. In their opinion, the first article of the amendments is in conflict with the fifth article of the constitution, and they believe that through these amendments the government wish to increase the political dependence of the public administration – something which is unacceptable given that the constitution emphasises the lawfulness, independence and autonomy of the work of the administration.
The ministerial cabinet has also begun to address the issue of the National Council and its existence. Last Thursday, with regard to the remuneration of the members and president of the National Council, the government underlined that the constitution and the applicable statute do not give the president of the National Council the basis for performing his function professionally. At the same time they called on the National Council to bring its standing orders into line with the constitution and the statute as soon as possible. If it fails to do so, the government itself will file statutory corrections. One possible consequence that has been mentioned is a reduction in the National Council’s budget funds.
Janez Janša’s government has not been able to avoid problems that first appeared under the previous government. In February a group of the ‘erased’ went on hunger strike in an attempt to draw attention to the unresolved issue of the ‘erased’. They also informed Erwan Fouéré, the head of the European Commission delegation to Slovenia, about the problem. The government insists that the question of the ‘erased’ can only be settled by means of a constitutional act under which cases would be dealt with individually, and where an individual has actually suffered an injustice this would be redressed. In this case, limited compensation would also eventually be paid. The government is expected to submit a draft constitutional act later this year.
The government has also had to deal the problems facing the Roma community. Parents of pupils at the Bršljin primary school in Novo Mesto have announced that they will no longer send their children to school because relations between Roma children and the other children are problematic. The education ministry has opted for a short-term solution, whereby special teaching groups will be introduced within the framework of the existing classes, where the Roma children and other children will be separated according to the principle of flexible differentiation or streaming. The school will also introduce Roma culture as a new elective subject available to both Roma children and other children. However, objections to the separation of the Roma children have been voiced both by the media and by education professionals.
Education Minister Milan Zver has already begun introducing the first changes in the sphere of education. The act amending the Primary School Act, which the government has already submitted to legislative procedure, does away with the nationwide assessment of knowledge at the end of the first three years of nine-year primary school. Under the amending act, assessments of knowledge at the ends of the second and third triads would remain. Opinions are divided as regards the abolishing of the assessment at the end of the first triad; some people believe that this assessment was a good indicator of the success of teachers’ work and of the extent to which pupils met prescribed standards of knowledge.
The idea put forward by Ivo Boscarol, a member of the Strategic Council for Economic Development, with regard to taxing people between the ages of 25 and 50 who do not have children, has caused considerable public outcry. Mr Janša has already pointed out that these are personal proposals from members of the council which should not be confused with the positions of the government or with the positions of the council. Only the chairman of the council may speak on behalf of the council, by prior agreement with the Prime Minister, while each member speaks on his or her own behalf. In connection with Boscarol’s suggestion, Labour, Family and Social Affairs Minister Janez Drobnič commented that there are no moves to introduce a special tax for single people.
The government has announced its own bill on the regulation of the registration of same-sex couples, while it has withdrawn from legislative procedure the bill on same-sex couples placed before parliament by opposition MPs. The latter have submitted a new bill designed to eliminate discrimination against same-sex couples and ensure the respecting of human rights and fundamental freedoms. NGOs involved with these issues supported the opposition bill and see numerous inadequacies in the draft law being prepared by the Ministry of Labour, Family and Social Affairs. However the parliamentary family affairs committee has already rated the bill as unsuitable for further discussion in the National Assembly. The gay and lesbian rights group in the European Parliament has called on European Commission President José Manuel Barroso to take action over statements made by Janez Drobnič, which they consider to be homophobic. Members of the group have demanded that the Commission publicly condemn this type of discrimination.
In this short period, the government has several times found itself in conflict with the executive body and management body of the Pension and Disability Insurance Institute (ZPIZ). First, it refused to give its consent to the re-appointment of the institute’s long-serving director-general Janez Prijatelj, who was chosen for the next mandate by the management board and assembly of the ZPIZ. During the repetition of the procedure, it was suggested by the competent minister that the rules for the selection of a new director-general had not been followed and that every shadow of doubt over the correctness of the procedure must be eliminated. The management board and assembly had selected Marijan Papež, the director of the Maribor regional unit of the ZPIZ.
The government has also replaced its own representatives on the two bodies of the ZPIZ even though the assembly’s mandate is due to expire in the middle of May. The reason for this was the government’s disagreement with the conduct of the now former government representatives in the vote on the government’s proposal for the ZPIZ to pay pensioners an advance on the recreation allowance for 2005, to the amount of 10,000 tolars per eligible person, in January. In the government’s opinion, the government representatives voted against this proposal.
The normative part of the government’s programme for the current year contains 203 substantive goals. It includes 241 acts – 162 bills, 61 ratifications, 10 resolutions, 5 national programmes and a constitutional act. The normative programme also includes 210 implementing regulations which will be adopted by the government this year: 169 decrees, 6 ordinances, 11 programmes, 2 strategies, 18 resolutions and 3 plans. In the last three months the government has already adopted 12 statutory initiatives, 9 ratifications, 49 decrees, 6 programmes, 3 plans, 9 resolutions, 6 reports, 3 ordinances and 1 decision.
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