EU tells Slovenia to move swiftly on privatisation
Slovenia was the fastest growing euro zone member in 2007 but was badly hit by the global crisis due to its dependency on exports.
The European Commission told Slovenia it should prepare swiftly for the planned sale of state assets as part of efforts to avoid needing international financial aid.
Slovenia is pushing ahead with large-scale privatisation plans, the clean-up of its indebted banking sector and other structural reforms to fend off the risk of becoming the next euro zone country requiring a bailout.
The Commission gave Slovenia two more years to cut its budget deficit below the EU ceiling of 3 per cent of gross domestic product and said it should hire independent external advisers by June to conduct a system-wide bank asset quality review that should be completed by year end.
However, ECB governing council member and Slovenia’s central bank governor Marko Kranjec expressed fear that external audits could delay the process of transferring bad loans of state banks to the newly established bad bank, due to start in June.
Slovenia’s Finance Minister Uros Cufer said Slovenia would do external stress test of banks as recommended, and added the country was considering lowering the national pension bill and rationalising its health system in order to further cut public spending.
The EU’s Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn said full implementation of a reform programme drafted by Prime Minister Alenka Bratusek’s two-month-old government should be enough to avoid Slovenia needing external financial help.