NEWS

Prime Minister Pahor meets with the management of the Capital Assets Management Agency

Prime Minister Pahor today met with the management of the Capital Assets Management Agency of the Republic of Slovenia. Among those who attended the meeting were the Minister of Finance, Dr Franc Križanič; the Minister of the Economy, Darja Radić, MSc; the Minister of Transport, Dr Patrick Vlačič; and the Minister without Portfolio Responsible for Development and European Affairs, Mitja Gaspari, MSc. At the press conference held after the meeting, Prime Minister Pahor said that the Capital Assets Management Agency would draw up the final draft of the Strategy of Corporate Governance of Capital Investments by the end of the week; the Government is expected to discuss the Strategy as early as next week.

  

Prime Minister Pahor stressed that 'the adoption of the Strategy is a crucial step in the management of state-owned assets, which amount to approximately EUR 8.5 billion.' The Agency will submit the draft document to the Government, which will return it to the Agency for a new opinion in the event that major amendments are made. Prime Minister Pahor explained that the Government is planning to discuss the final version of the document in the third week of June and submit it to the National Assembly before the summer recess. 'We have avoided large-scale privatisation, which has been undertaken for fiscal consolidation purposes by some other stricken countries, and succeeded in achieving stronger economic growth, reducing the unemployment rate and managing major problems, namely the state budget deficit and public debt,' stated Prime Minister Pahor, adding that the state would have to decide when selling certain assets would be beneficial because 'we are currently incurring a loss for the sum of all assets'.

   

During the meeting, some issues were also addressed concerning the functioning of the Agency, which have met with a broad public response. Referring to the high annual leave payment at NLB, the President of the Management Board of the Agency stressed that payments above the minimum amounts defined by collective agreements were 'unreasonable', particularly in companies that had already or were shortly to receive a capital injection. 'But the fact is that the management must comply with collective agreements. If, given the circumstances, the amounts of annual leave payments under collective agreements are unduly high, the management should consider entering negotiations with trade unions,' reasoned the President of the Agency's Management Board. With regard to the capital injection into NKBM, Prime Minister Pahor stressed that he himself was not satisfied with the Agency's intervention in this process. He nevertheless accepted the decision to do so since the Agency would be surplus to requirements if the Government sought to replace its management whenever it disagreed with the Agency's decisions. He also stressed that the Agency will be required to explain or defend the economic justification of its decision in due course. The Prime Minister suggested that meetings between Government and Agency representatives be held more regularly in the future, and recommended that the Agency submit quarterly reports to the National Assembly's Committee on Finance and Monetary Policy.