By: Dr Metod Berlec
“The government has decided to dismantle, annul, cancel, and tear up everything that the previous government has done before the holidays. Which in its essence is an attack on democracy,” wrote the former minister of development, blogger, and tweeter Dr ŽigaTurk on the Siol.net web portal in the comment “Time of pickles”. In doing so, he recalled that in the “more enlightened media” some time ago, we read in relation to the rule of Trump, Johnson, and Janša that the government must limit itself. “That it should not do everything it is allowed to do by law. We do not hear the same when it comes to the even more brutal legislative and personnel revanchism of Golob’s government. Otherwise, we read and see that it is about eliminating the harmful consequences of the previous government and exchanging non-experts with experts, but we only read this because of the symbiosis of ‘independent media’ and the authorities. If we were truthful instead of independent, we would read something else.” Turk added: “Such retaliation is harmful in many ways. Concretely, it creates uncertainty. The economy and people need some stability, predictability, peace. From now on, we can expect to turn the country upside down every time the colour of the government changes. The Reds are working to ensure that this never happens again, but sooner or later it will.” Yes, let’s hope it will be true, because the essence of democracy is that the rule changes and that all three branches of power (legislative, executive, and judicial) operate independently and in accordance with their competences. According to the “checks and balances” system, which European Enlightenment thinkers wrote about centuries ago. To “prevent the dominance of one person, group or branch of government”.
In this edition of Demokracija magazine, we are therefore highlighting two completely wrong moves by Golob’s government, which will have long-term consequences for all citizens of the Republic of Slovenia. The first is the mini-government tax anti-reform and the second is the new government migrant policy. Let’s remember. The Ministry of Finance under the leadership of Klemen Boštjančič (from the quota of Golob’s Gibanje Svoboda party) prepared proposals for amendments to four tax laws: on income tax, excise duties, tax procedure, and tax administration. The legislative changes should also pursue the goals of ensuring public financial stability and combating the costliness. The changes should also bring administrative simplification for taxpayers and transfer EU directives to the Slovenian legal order. The former director of the Financial Administration of the Republic of Slovenia and one of the best experts on tax legislation in the country, Ivan Simič, responded to this, and gave his expert commentary on this topic the title “Tax reform as tax revenge”. In which he specifically pointed out on Twitter: “The proposal for tax changes is a good proof that it is a waste of energy to build a better tax system, because the new government is destroying everything that the previous government adopted and encouraging us to become consumers of taxes instead of payers.” Similarly, the economist Dr Matej Lahovnik emphasised: “The tax reform of the previous government went in the right direction and was in line with OECD guidelines. It relieved the salary with tax measures… It was an increase in net wages and the increase would be even higher year after year in the following years. I must say that I am very, very unpleasantly surprised by this proposal prepared by the current government. Namely, the essence of this proposal is that it raises tax rates and lowers the growth of the general allowance. All economists know that in times of crisis, the worst thing you can do is to raise duties, to raise taxes. This further complicates business for companies and, of course, life for citizens. We should also not ignore the fact that this will probably have a negative impact on consumption, and that is why I think these measures are actually problematic.” This is also pointed out by former minister and SDS MP Zvone Černač in an interview for the magazine.
Perhaps even more problematic is the fact that under the new government the Ministry of Internal Affairs is controlled by people from the so-called Peace Institute, who think that migration is “a part of reality and a constant of modern societies” and that fences “cannot and never have stopped them”, which is far from historical and geopolitical facts. At the same time, representatives of the ministry, led by former first police officer Tatjana Bobnar, equate legal and illegal migration, which, according to experts, is ripe not only for interpellation, but also for constitutional accusations and criminal prosecution. The Republic of Slovenia was created in 1991 as an independent European country precisely in order to be able to protect its borders by itself, to protect the Slovenian nation and all its citizens. This is the essence of the sovereignty of every country, and not that anyone who can potentially threaten it can illegally enters it…