By: UKOM
Air transport in Europe, including Slovenia, and around the world has been severely restricted due to the consequences of the covid-19 epidemic and continues to be so. According to Eurostat, the drop in passenger transport in Slovenia in 2020 in comparison to 2019 amounted to 83.3 percent (EU average was 73.3 percent), which was the greatest decline among all EU countries.
This is why Ministry for economic development and technology has published a Public call for promoting the re-establishment of Slovenia’s air connectivity in 2022.
As a small open economy, Slovenia is an exceptionally export-oriented country, since the domestic market with little more than two million inhabitants does not enable sufficient domestic consumption. The Slovenian economy thus greatly depends on international trade and travel exports, which is why it every change in business development of foreign partner countries affects it greatly. It this perspective international air transport and international connectivity of the Slovenian economy are of general economic significance for Slovenia, as they significantly impact the development of the economy in the entire territory of Slovenia and not only tourism.
The purpose of this public call is to improve air connectivity of the Republic of Slovenia with European and other countries, while the objective is to maintain the current regular international airlines and promote the establishment of new regular airlines by air carriers who ceased flying to the Republic of Slovenia due to the consequences of the pandemic.
The subject of the call involves co-financing of the costs incurred by air carriers when providing flights and transporting passengers to the Republic of Slovenia. The eligibility period is from 27 March 2022 to 31 May 2022, while the funds must be used (and paid) until 31 December 2022. The deadline for the submission of applications is 6 June 2022.
Applications must be submitted to the Ministry of Economic Development and Technology, Kotnikova Ulica 5, 1000 Ljubljana. The application can also be submitted electronically in a pdf format to [email protected].
Source: gov.si