By: Vida Kocjan
“In the next eight years, we (Gibanje Svoboda, Levica, SD) will bring Slovenia among the best in the world,” Robert Golob publicly declared in April 2022.
And where are we today? Far from it. We are sinking at an accelerated pace. If there are no changes in the next four years, which is rather unlikely, Slovenia will go under.
By macroeconomic indicators, Slovenia is at the bottom compared to developed countries. The only area where it ranks among the top five is taxation, exactly as Golob promised before the elections, that his government would raise taxes. After all, what would lower taxes, and more money bring him? He would just waste it on nonsense. Most people either did not believe him or ignored it, but today the situation is dire.
The latest data from the Ministry of Finance on the state budget shows just how recklessly the government is spending taxpayers’ money. The figures cover the first seven months of this year. During this period, expenditure exceeded revenue by €912 million. That was the deficit in the state budget, which will have to be covered by borrowing. The deficit is €399 million higher than in the same period last year, even though revenues, amounting to €8.2 billion, were 2.9% higher than last year. At the same time, expenditure, at €9.1 billion, was 7.4% higher than last year. The gap between expenditure and revenue is therefore 4.5 percentage points.
The bulk of the increased expenditure is due to higher labour costs in the public sector. It will be even worse in October, when an additional adjustment will follow in line with the changes to the pay system. In fact, the government plans for this year’s deficit to reach around €1.7 billion (compared to only €200 million last year).
That the government really cannot handle money is also evident from the latest figures of August 10th, 2025. By that date, the deficit had already reached €1.3 billion. Even more worrying is that funds approved for Slovenia are still lying unused in Brussels’ coffers. Nothing is improving in this area. But we do have new taxes. That counts for something too, as the far left would say.