The adoption of the supplementary state budget for 2020, which envisages a deficit of 9.3% of gross domestic product (GDP) is currently in the parliamentary process. The reason for this is in the COVID-19 pandemic, which prompted the government in March to adopt a number of measures to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus and mitigate the effects of the epidemic on both the population and the economy. Life came to a halt for a while, but due to the proper and timely measures, a financial and economic collapse in the country was prevented. Slovenia is one of the most successful countries in terms of implementation of successful measures to control the new coronavirus.
As a result, revenues of the state budget decreased and expenditures increased significantly. As the country is not a bottomless pit, the state budget debt has increased by more than 5 billion euros in seven months and the state of public finances has deteriorated, prompting some in the opposition to loudly complain.
However, this time the money went to the economy and the population and not to “nothing”, as happened in 2013 and 2014, when the at-the-time government led by Alenka Bratušek borrowed money and incurred debt of more than ten billion euros or more than five billion euros annually. At the time, the money was allocated mainly to the recapitalisation of the then state-owned banks (NLB, NKBM and Abanka). Additionally her government was also rescuing the private banks Factor banka and Probanka and their owners from Kučan’s Forum 21 and consequently the deep state.
Thus, in 2013 alone, we witnessed a government deficit of 15.1% , while in 2014, the deficit was still very much present – at 5.3%. The deficit carried on in 2015 and 2016, causing Slovenia to pay very high interest rates on loans taken out abroad, up to 833 million euros per year. Today, the virtuous opposition leaders forget this had happened when they are critical of the current state of public finances. Moreover, the largest and especially the left-leaning media have pushed those years into oblivion. At that time, the government was throwing money into a bank hole and solving crimes caused by the very structures they were rescuing. Today the situation is completely different; the work of Janez Janša and his government is focused primarily on caring for the economy, citizens and their well-being.
Highlighted sentence: At that time, the government was throwing money into a bank hole and solving crimes caused by their tycoon-criminal structures.