NEWS
Prime Minister’s press conference
At today's 75 regular session, the Slovenian Government, alongside other resolutions, adopted the draft Act Amending the Act Regulating Gradual Closure of the Trbovlje-Hrastnik Mine and Development Restructuring of the Region, the proposed new model for a regulation of the public road infrastructure records and the related debt and took note of a report on the violations of management duties of the State Prosecutor General of the Republic of Slovenia and the claim to initiate the procedure for establishing the constitutionality of Article 41. The Slovenian Prime Minister, Borut Pahor, and the responsible ministers outlined the major resolutions, and Mr Pahor then answered a number of questions.
(Photo: Matej Leskovšek/STA)
At today’s session, the Government adopted the draft Act Amending the Act Regulating Gradual Closure of the Trbovlje-Hrastnik Mine. The basic purpose of the draft is to achieve a socially sustainable transition of redundant mine workers to other working environments or dismissal in the passive forms of re-assignment (retirements) due to more difficult employability resulting from specific features of the previous work and due to employment environment for which above-average unemployment rate is characteristic regarding the state as a whole. The aim of these proposed amendments to the Act is to disburden, in a short run, the pressure on the budgetary resources from which the closure is financed and to provide secure electricity supply since the only coal consumer is Thermal Power Plant Trbovlje; the draft Act extends the period of coal extraction and as a result changes the dynamics of necessary budgetary resources earmarked for the closure.
At its regular session, the Slovenian Government imposed an obligation on Holding Slovenske Elektrarne d.o.o. to consider obtaining, as soon as possible, a new independent assessment by a foreign assessor of the profitability of planning and implementing the investment of constructing Block 6 of the Thermal Power Plant Šoštanj whilst the HSE Group should promptly submit the already elaborated assessment to the Government.
The ministers today adopted the proposed new model for a regulation of the public road infrastructure records an the related debt. The mentioned model represents the most adequate model of ownership and accounting of the public road infrastructure records; a model where the lands shall be transferred to the books of account of the Republic of Slovenia and the public road infrastructure shall become the property of DARS, d.d. in which the Republic of Slovenia has a capital investment.
Today, the Slovenian Government took note of the report on violations of the State Prosecutor General’s management duties and a claim to initiate the procedure for establishing the constitutionality of Articles 41 and 17 of the State Prosecutor Act on the appointment and dismissal of the State Prosecutor General. According to the Slovenian Government opinion there are various explanations or uses of the State Prosecutor Act possible, and therefore the Government adopted a resolution to initiate a procedure for establishing the constitutionality of the second and third paragraphs of Article 41 of the State Prosecutor Act.
At the conclusion of the press conference, Prime Minister Pahor also presented the spring forecast of economic trends – the Spring Report of the Office of the Government of the Republic of Slovenia for Macroeconomic Analysis and Development (IMAD) that the Government has been briefed about. Mr Pahor emphasised that Slovenia was recovering well, however there were still certain difficulties, noting that “We have reached a positive economic climate.” Today, the Prime Minister presented again the table for examination of implementation of the exit strategy by Act and assessed the situation a month ago and situation today. “We cannot say that no progress has been made,” explained Prime Minister Pahor and added that “the Acts progressed differently”. At the close of his statement, Prime Minister Pahor also answered a number of questions.