NEWS
Prime Minister's press conference following the Government’s 104th regular session
At today's session, the Government of the Republic of Slovenia, alongside other resolutions, adopted a Strategy for managing state participation in NLB and a Decree on cooperation between the State Prosecutor's Office, the Police and other competent national authorities and institutions in investigating and prosecuting criminal offenders and on operation of specialised and joint investigation teams. The responsible ministers presented the adopted resolutions, and Prime Minister Pahor then answered a number of topical questions.
(Photo: Daniel Novakovič/SPA, source: GCO)
At today's session, the ministerial corps adopted the Strategy for managing state participation in NLB. The Ministry of Finance submitted a proposal to the Government for the state to participate in the recapitalisation in the scope required to maintain a majority state ownership of the bank. The proposal follows a decision adopted by the Parliamentary Committee on Finance and Monetary Policy on 8 September 2010, instructing the Government not to decrease the existing state ownership share in NLB pending the adoption of the strategy. If failing to participate in future recapitalisations, the state would take the risk of the existing or new investor obtaining the majority ownership of NLB at any time following such recapitalisations, which might result in losing NLB as a strategic and independent bank without a takeover premium, which the state may get in the case of guided privatisation or in the case of prudently planned and controlled transfer of the majority ownership share in NLB to a private investor. The Ministry also proposed that the state would increase its existing 48.58% ownership share in NLB to 50% plus 1 share in the first future recapitalisation by an overproportional capital payment.
Today, the Government also issued a Decree on the cooperation between the State Prosecutor's Office, the Police and other competent national authorities and institutions in investigating and prosecuting criminal offenders and on operation of specialised and joint investigation teams. The Decree lays down a procedure, cases, time limits and manner of cooperation of the State Prosecutor's Office with the Police and other competent national authorities and institutions in the field of taxes, customs, financial operations, securities, competition protection, prevention of money laundering, prevention of corruption, illicit drugs and inspections, in carrying out their tasks. In this context, the cooperation with mentioned authorities covers the operations of specialised and joint investigation teams. The Ministry of Justice thus implements the provision of the Criminal Procedure Act (Article 160a), which provides the basis for such operations; this Decree specifies the operational cooperation between the mentioned authorities.
After today's Government session, Prime Minister Pahor touched upon the recapitalisation of NLB explaining that the Government had adopted a decision that is "most rational at this moment" and expressed his satisfaction that it was a compromise between different opinions. "The recapitalisation will not exceed EUR 243 million," said the Prime Minister and confirmed the participation of Belgium co-owner KBC. The Government will ensure recapitalisation funding from the sale of state property which is not of strategic importance. He stressed that, regardless of any developments concerning this Bank, NLB was an important system-relevant bank which played an important role during the crisis by easing the credit crunch in Slovenia.
Prime Minister Pahor reiterated that the intended integration of energy pillars, i.e. Holding of Slovenian Power Plants and Gen Energy, should be placed in the context of energy policy. Ha added that he had the issue of the Unit 6 of the Šoštanj Thermal Power Plant on his mind for quite a long time; however, the larger energy issues had escaped his attention. "I could not see the forest for the trees. Now, the forest must be looked at in its entirety; we need to look into Slovenia's energy policy," underlined Prime Minister Pahor adding that he fully supports Minister Radić in her endeavours; however, no immediate decisions are required.
Prime Minister Pahor answered the question about his meeting with the President of the Board of SCT, Ivan Zidar. According to the Prime Minister, they last met in Tripoli at a dinner celebrating Libya's national holiday which he was invited to attend. The purpose of the visit to Libya was to consolidate political friendship, which plays an important role in concluding contracts, but without giving special priority to any particular economic operator. On this occasion, Ivan Zidar asked Prime Minister Pahor to hand a letter to the Prime Minister of Libya regarding some unresolved issues about a concluded contract. "And this is all I did. Why shouldn't I? Personally, I am not interested in Ivan Zidar," stressed Prime Minister Pahor. He went on to say that he made every effort to open ways for any company and for the whole enterprise sector to reach markets essential for our subsistence. Prime Minister Pahor did not focus on SCT as a company which is headed by Ivan Zidar, but on all workers employed by the company and on the important role played by this company in the civil engineering sector.