The government will discuss on Friday guidelines for a second fiscal stimulus package after its first, EUR 3 billion bill was passed in parliament on Thursday. The new measures will bring some corrections to the law passed yesterday and new measures to address liquidity, investment and employment legislation.
Finance Minister Andrej Šircelj announced at the start of the week that the government was already working on additional measures to mitigate the coronavirus crisis.
“Once we have mitigated the negative consequences of the epidemic, we will encourage the economy, liquidity and investment, with new measures,” he said.
The government is examining the proposals put forward by deputy groups to improve the first law, which was adopted in a hurry so it has some flaws, coronavirus crisis spokesperson Jelko Kacin told the press on Friday. “We want to examine, harmonise and prepare these things for the second package.”
At the same time the government is examining possible measures to boost the economy’s liquidity, he said, noting these two groups of measures will be “the core of the second package”.
The government would like to adopt the second bill in ten days, and then immediately send it to parliament, he explained at today’s first government media briefing.
The government will be helped by the advisory task force led by economist Matej Lahovnik, which also advised it on the first package, according to economist Marko Jaklič, a member of the task force.
He said the task force had split into three groups – one focusing on liquidity, another on labour market and flexicurity and the third one on investment.
The liquidity group has already embarked on work so the set of measure to boost liquidity of Slovenian companies should be ready shortly, he told the Odmevi news show on public broadcaster TV Slovenija last evening.
The second group will draft measures that are to address the challenges on the labour market after 1 June, according to Jaklič.
The measures featured in the EUR 3 billion coronavirus law passed yesterday are valid from mid-March when the epidemic was declared until end-May, possibly a month longer.
Trade unions are however upset that the government continues to ignore social dialogue.
The ZSSS association thus urged Labour Minister Janez Cigler Kralj today to involve the Economic and Social Council, the country’s main industrial relations forum, in drafting the new measures, at least those related to the labour market.