NEWS

Prime Minister after the meeting with the presidents of parliamentary parties: "We should decide together, on the basis of specific measures and calculations, which is the right year for Slovenia and its citizens to implement the fiscal rule."

"All the participants in today's talks agreed that we are discussing key issues," stressed Prime Minister Alenka Bratušek in her statement to the press following the meeting with the presidents of parliamentary parties and the leaders of parliamentary groups.

 

Ms Bratušek said that the Positive Slovenia will withdraw its request that a session of the National Assembly be convened tomorrow to discuss the referendum legislation. She expressed her wish that the Slovenian Democratic Party, which requested a session of the National Assembly to be convened on Tuesday in order to decide on the fiscal rule, did the same. Ms Bratušek explained that Slovenia would have to reduce the expenditure by one-and-a-half billion euro in one year and a half, if fiscal rule was incorporated into the Constitution in the form proposed by the Slovenian Democratic Party. "This would result in a 30% drop in pensions or even bigger drop in wages or 50% reduction in social transfers," she stressed.

 

Ms Bratušek added that until Tuesday, there is still time for the Slovenian Democratic Party to take the offer for cooperation and hear the presentation of the stability programme, and then all the parties can decide, on the basis of specific measures and calculations, which year is the right one for Slovenia and its citizens to implement the fiscal rule. "As Prime Minister, I will not support the measures that would reduce pensions or wages for teachers or doctors by 30% or leave those who are on the margins of society without anything," she asserted and expressed her belief that there are other solutions for our difficulties. "Germany adopted the fiscal rule in 2009 and will implement it in 2016 at the national level and in 2020 at the regional level. Slovenia would be forced to do it in a year and a half, which is unrealistic, as according to the Constitution, Slovenia is a social state," said Ms Bratušek. At the conclusion, she again called upon the Slovenian Democratic Party, the initiator of the Tuesday's session of the National Assembly, to "join in the efforts if it really cares about the country".