NEWS
Prime Minister's press conference held after the Government’s 116th regular session
At a press conference today, the Prime Minister of the Republic of Slovenia, Borut Pahor, outlined the major resolutions and decisions adopted by the Government at its 116 Th regular session. In his introduction, Prime Minister Pahor repudiated the hints that the Court of Audit would have any motifs other than those that fall within its competence. Further to that he affirmed that his action with respect to the appeal by the Court of Audit for dismissal of Minister Križanič will be such as to protect the integrity of the Court. Prime Minister Pahor said that he will consider the appeal for dismissal within the next 15 days, but before that he expects to receive the minister’s explanations. At the same time he gave assurances that his decision will not be influenced by public opinion. “I shall do what I think is right,” he said. If the Prime Minister will find the Minister’s explanation unsatisfactory, he will dismiss him, but he will not propose his dismissal if satisfied with the given explanations. “I am not in the least afraid of making this decision. I find this a complex decision that calls for a thoughtful and wise man who is able to carefully consider the arguments," added Prime Minister Pahor.
At its today’s session the Government took note of the Information on resolving the problems regarding dismissal of workers by the so-called dummy companies. The Government was trying hard to find an option for the amendment of Article 73 of the Employment Relations Act that would be acceptable for both the trade unions’ as well as the employers’ side. Further to that, it should be pointed out that the compromise solution was adopted on the basis of discussions by the working group addressing the issue of dummy companies at six meeting held within the period from July to October 2010, when the proposal was also harmonised on the expert level.
The proposed text of Article 73 was aimed at limiting to the maximum extent possible the current wide-spread practice of abusing or circumventing the instrument of employer change (the core problem of such abuses is the transfer of business and employees from parent undertakings to so-called dummy companies without assets, which then go bankrupt while the workers fail to receive payment or severance pay since the company at the time of its termination does not dispose of sufficient means to repay claims ensuing from the labour relations).
Owing to different interests-based objections to the proposed expert-harmonised amendment to Article 73, it was decided that the proposal regarding Article 73 be included in the systemic changes of labour law to be proposed still in 2011. The ministerial corps also discussed the information regarding the capital increase of NKBM. The Government as the representative of the Republic of Slovenia, the major shareholder of NKBM, participated at the assembly meeting held on 8 July 2009, and voted for the measure of approved capital increase by selling shares via an initial public offer. Further to that, the Government consents to the transfer of its right of pre-emption to share purchase via public offer to third institutional national or foreign investors. The Government will protect its ownership interests by concluding a shareholders agreement with the new investors, which will define pre-emptive right of the Republic of Slovenia at a reasonable price for the entire share of the pre-emptive right transferred in the process of capital increase on the basis of approved capital. The government will implement the capital increase by means of financial assets management.
In the course of the press conference, Prime Minister Pahor answered the question whether he intends to relate the vote of confidence for himself as the Prime Minister to possible referenda on reforms. Prime Minister said that he does not intend to do so and explained that in this case people would decide about their support to the Government rather than about the subject of referendum. “Let’s not change the referendum into elections”, added the Prime Minister.
At the end of the press conference, Prime Minister Pahor also touched upon the tomorrow’s conference on the logistic holding company at Brdo pri Kranju. He believes that this is one of the last opportunities to reach an agreement on this project. “In the absence of understanding from the side of management, supervisory boards and trade unions, it will be probably very difficult to turn the idea of a holding company into reality by force of the owner. If the managements and supervisory boards of the companies disagree with or have too many concerns about the establishment of such holding, the success of the holding is rather questionable, as all the problems surfacing in the process of its creation would be attributed to presumably wrong decision for its establishment, thus ignoring any long-term benefits that such holding may bring,” said Prime Minister Pahor, who himself is in favour of such holding. Further to that, he added that the fear of this institution is significant, which explains the restraint of managements, supervisory boards and trade unions towards the establishment of what Mehdorn named “a holding” unaware of the dubious lure that holdings adopted in the recent history of tycoon stories.”