By: Vida Kocjan
The state budget deficit in the first half of this year was an incredible 800 million euros, which is 750 million euros more than in the same period last year. Budget spending exceeded revenue by 800 million euros, not including expenditures for emergency measures.
The data was published last Thursday, July 3rd, by the Fiscal Council. Prime Minister Robert Golob disappeared from public view at the beginning of this week. On Monday, he was supposed to answer parliamentary questions in the National Assembly, but he was “on vacation.” The same goes for most of the relevant ministers.
But the data is alarming. It shows a slowdown in the pace of state budget revenues, largely due to the cooling of economic activity. At the same time, public spending continues to grow rapidly, mainly due to higher public sector wages following a change in the pay system. The data is also disastrous when it comes to drawing EU funds, where Slovenia remains at the bottom of the list among EU member states. The money that the current government is leaving behind in Brussels also means fewer investments.
The reasons for Golob’s team behaving this way may lie in the incompetence of the ministerial team, or in the fact that the use of EU funds is subject to much stricter oversight than the spending of domestic taxpayers’ money. A third reason could be that the government simply does not know how, or does not want, to carry out major investment projects tied to EU funding. It has shifted priorities, is allocating money to so-called “soft” content, and citizens are worried, if not outright outraged. The greatest frustration is being felt by mayors, rightly or wrongly. They remain silent, as if waiting for the nightmare to end, one in which they, along with the rest of us, now find ourselves.