NEWS
Prime Minister’s press conference
At today's 62nd regular session, the Slovenian Government, in addition to other resolutions, adopted the proposal for the Act Amending the Energy Zones Act, the Report on the breakdown of the situation on priority development axes and the Concept of the programme related to e-Social Care projects. The Slovenian Prime Minister, Borut Pahor, and the responsible ministers first outlined the major resolutions, and Mr Pahor then answered some topical questions.
(Foto: Tina Kosec/STA)
At today's session, the Slovenian Government agreed on the text of the proposed Act Amending the Energy Zones Act. The principal provision of this act stipulates that the regime of claiming tax relief in energy zones be extended until the end of 2013. Because the measures in this regime involve state aid, the articles defining this relief have been amended or supplemented in order to comply with the EU rules for this category of state aid. The proposed act provides for the possibility of claiming tax relief and, consequently, the allocation of state aid to large investment projects, and harmonises penal provisions with the applicable provisions of the national legislation on imposing fines for offences.
The ministerial corps adopted the Report on the breakdown of the situation on priority development axes, to be submitted for discussion to the Transport Committee and the Committee on the Environment and Spatial Planning of the Slovenian National Assembly. The development axes represent secondary cross-connections enabling interconnection between centres of national importance and provide adequate accessibility and connection with international flows. Their successful implementation is a long-term and gradual process which requires integration of individual sectoral approaches in a common and harmonised development vision of the economy, transport, tourism, settlement and the environment. The development axes link regional centres in Austria, Italy, Slovenia and Croatia, thus enabling a connection of freight and personal road transport from all regions on these axes to all major European traffic routes.
Today, the Government also adopted the Concept of the programme related to e-Social Care projects and confirmed the Action Plan and the Project Council for this programme. In so doing, it further stipulated that individual data sources within the e-Social Care system should be established by the end of 2010 at the latest. One of the principle goals of the new information system is prompt and correct decision-making in connection with entitlements from public funds, the reduction of the possibility of errors and fraud, and greater transparency of the allocated funds. The introduction of the e-Social Care system means the development of electronic operations representing an investment in the improvement of public administration services, simplification of administrative procedures and elimination of administrative obstacles, increased transparency in determining and allocating social assistance, and improved cooperation between Slovenian administrative bodies and, in the long run, EU bodies.
At the close of the press conference, Prime Minister Pahor announced the Government's decision that at its regular sessions the ministerial corps would, until further notice, also discuss the exit strategy documents and said that "this decision reflects Slovenia's need to adopt decisions which are necessary for the achievement of one of the goals at this year's infra-annual level, i.e. to reduce the budget deficit by 0.5 percentage points." He went on to say that the Government "will discuss and adopt the stability programme in the shortest time possible and launch negotiations with social partners, while, if necessary, also advocating it before the National Assembly. This is an absolute priority of the Government for the first quarter of 2010."