At the today's press conference, the Prime Minister of the Republic of Slovenia, Janez Janša, expressed his satisfaction with the package of tax legislation adopted by the National Assembly. The Prime Minister said this had provided Slovenia with a realistic basis for making significant improvements to the tax system. The tax system will now be simpler and more taxpayer-friendly; and – a major feature - it will reduce the tax burden. A substantial improvement introduced by this taxation reform is also the radical reduction in labour costs.
PHOTO: Office of the Prime Minister
The Prime Minister said: “Reforming tax legislation will make Slovenia more competitive, particularly for those who invest more in knowledge and their own education and who invest more in their own future and that of the country as a whole. »According to our forecasts, this will increase the possibility of even better results for the Slovenian economy, which have already been very stable. Slovenia has recently recorded strong economic growth, low inflation rate and decreases in unemployment, which is an excellent achievement. Slovenia has never before experienced such a favourable set of key macroeconomic indicators. This reinforces the optimism prior to 1 January of next year when Slovenia adopts the euro as its national currency.”
Mr Janša went on to say Slovenia had been reducing its budget deficit without restricting any social benefits, but by means of more economical management and reducing public expenditure. “It should be noted that easing the tax burden on labour and reducing central government revenues will not result in an increase in taxes in other areas, because this shortfall will be offset by higher economic growth and further reduction of public expenditures.”
The Prime Minister also addressed the issue of the Roma community in Slovenia. He said that the issue of the rights, situation and responsibility of the Roma community applies to all the European countries and that Slovenia is not an exception. Although conditions have not been ideal, Slovenia is among those countries that have had the least difficulty with this issue, as the problems are generally smaller, less urgent, and only arise occasionally. The Prime Minister said: “The rights of the Roma community in Slovenia are well protected, even though there is no umbrella law in place yet, but certain problems do occur in practice. Nevertheless, Slovenia can offer some cases of good practice in integrating the Roma community into the local environment and ordinary life, particularly, the Roma community in the northeastern part of Slovenia and/or in the Prekmurje region. The Government would like to see this good practice applied elsewhere. In this regard we must say frankly that there are municipalities and regions in Slovenia where Roma populations have lived for a longer time and regions in the country where there is no Roma population. The communities in which the Roma community settle are often treated very unfairly by being called intolerant, because individual conflicts are generalised without considering the fact that the Roma have settled – often setting up illegal settlements – in regions where there is actually more tolerance for them. Where there was less tolerance, they did not settle because the local population made it impossible from the very start. Failing to take into account this dimension of the problem can be a grave injustice to those municipalities or to the population of those municipalities, local communities, villages and settlements that occasionally face problems with the Roma community and who, on the basis of individual excesses, are considered as intolerant or for whom other different negative adjectives are used.”
The Prime Minister pointed out that Slovenia has included the rights of the Roma community in the Constitution and made a commitment to adopting a special law on the status of the Roma community. The present Government set a goal to adopt the mentioned law in this mandate. The draft law is about to be discussed by the Government, with the level of coordination required to draft the law taking considerable time. The Prime Minister said, “However, it is true, that only in this mandate has serious consideration been given to the issue, and that prior to that the executive branch of the Government had insisted for 12 years that there was no need for a special law. Some of the issues have actually been resolved by individual acts, but not all of them, so an umbrella law is needed. To date, partly because there has not been an umbrella law, the key issue has been the vacuum between the powers of local communities, that have had to resolve the issues, and the Government’s powers. In some municipalities this has become an urgent matter because the Roma community lived in locations without the relevant permissions, in buildings constructed illegally, in locations that were also disputed for ecological reasons, and the municipalities had no alternative land or locations to solve this issue more appropriately. l would like to point out that many of these issues could not simply be solved by increasing the finances available, or more intensive political participation and/or introduction of Roma council members on individual Municipal Councils. We would like to fill this legal lacuna with the law now planned and set to pass through the parliamentary procedure. The law has been worked on with the representatives of the Roma community of Slovenia and I anticipate a constructive discussion about the law when the material is submitted to the National Assembly.”
The Prime Minister regrets that following the conflict that arose between the local population and the Roma community near Ambrus became an issue of such international focus. Some institutions in Slovenia turned to international institutions, without first trying the national level. Most of these interventions were not reported to the Slovenian Government. The fact is that the Government had to react after the conflict had arisen. The Prime Minister said, “We might ask ourselves what could have happened if we had not taken action. The solution adopted at that time was a temporary one. It was not a long-term solution but to prevent further damage. At present, the Government Commission for the Settlement of Issues of the Roma Community in Slovenia has been seeking a long-term solution for this specific family. However, to our regret, this issue cannot be settled systematically until we have the full legal basis required, which has not been in place until now because the umbrella law on the rights and responsibilities of the Roma community has not been adopted, even though it is required by the Constitution. This means that there will be a considerable period of time needed for this issue to be approached systematically.”
The Slovenian Government will invite all the institutions in Europe now engaged in this issue to visit Slovenia and to acquaint themselves with the status of the Roma community. This will allow them to compare the situation with that in other European countries and form an unbiased opinion on the matter on that basis. According to the Prime Minister, the situation is not ideal and various possible conflicts cannot be excluded also in the future, but Slovenia is far from having the worst arrangements in Europe for this issue. Mr Janša said, “It is not by accident that it is always the same groups with a clearly identifiable political background that raise their voices on these issues, without making any contribution to actually solving open issues. It is easy to talk about tolerance in general but when a problem arises and has to be solved, measures have to be taken and the best possible and least harmful solution has to be found. In such cases, noble talk and theories are of no help and from this perspective I support the moves made by the Minister of the Interior, solving the situation on the spot, when there was no time to open and have a ten-year-long public discussion on how to solve the issue. That is what has been happening for the past ten years. I believe that the President of the Government Commission for the Settlement of Issues of Roma Community in Slovenia, Dr Zver has performed his duties excellently and within these frameworks we will seek a long-term solution for the future.”
