Today, after several days of negotiations, the European Council reached an agreement on a multiannual financial framework and a recovery instrument worth a total of € 1,824 billion. The agreement brings extensive additional funds for Slovenia, which will facilitate the recovery after the COVID crisis and encourage investment in the green and digital transition.
»After Brexit, the European Union is different, the balance of power is different, new balances are being established, and perhaps this has further contributed to the fact that it took practically 4 days for an agreement to be reached,« Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Janša said in a statement for the media.
He said that Slovenia welcomed the agreement reached on both the multiannual financial framework and the recovery instrument. »It is a great achievement,« the prime minister said, adding that it was also a bright moment. »Firstly, because in fact the total amount of funds for recovery and development in the coming years, especially in the first three years, is now sufficient. It is a robust response to the corona crisis, and this overall scope also provides some greater optimism before the autumn, when we are all still a little afraid of what will happen with the continuation of this epidemiological wave,« said the Prime Minister. He added: »On the other hand, both instruments are good also because we have achieved a fair distribution.«
»Especially in this last part, our proposals were taken into account, as well as the proposals of others, which we addressed to the European Council, the leadership and the Commission, in the sense that the specifics of individual countries were taken into account, in the case of Slovenia especially the problem of our Western region, which was threatened by a drastic drop in funding compared to the previous financial perspective,« stressed the Prime Minister Janez Janša and pointed out that »we have succeeded with our maximum proposal in providing additional transitional funds so that this envelope is large enough to make this transition smooth«.
»Given the starting points we had, Slovenia has achieved a key strategic goal, that is, we have reached an ambitious agreement, which is important not only from a financial but also from a psychological point of view. Namely, Slovenia has achieved all the essential negotiating goals, and we have secured a very favorable share of funds under both instruments,« the Prime Minister emphasized.
He then pointed out what this specifically means in numbers: »If we talk about the general global financial position of Slovenia, the entire period of seven years is 10.5 billion funds, of which 6 billion and 600 million are grants, within which within our national envelope is almost 3 billion euros for cohesion policy and one billion and 600 million for the common agricultural policy. As part of the recovery instrument, we have another 2 billion and 100 million in grants and 3 billion and 600 million in loans,« said the Slovenian Prime Minister. The size of the envelope for the Western Cohesion Region, according to the Prime Minister, is 350 million euros, »so our maximum expectation«. »In addition, we have managed to improve the Commission’s proposal when it comes to rural development, and we have received an additional EUR 50 million on this item. So despite the fact that this European Council has been long and arduous, we are leaving it satisfied,« said the Prime Minister Janez Janša.
The Prime Minister also assessed that in terms of the situation, in terms of Slovenian statistics, and in terms of relative development, the outcome of the current negotiations, comparing all three negotiations so far, is the best when it comes to the multiannual financial perspective.
»Otherwise, Slovenia remains a net recipient of the European budget, and looking back we regret why we have not fared better in these seven years since the last negotiations. But the view from the current situation we are in is positive, and it is a success because it allows us to achieve the goal of greater development and faster development in the next seven-year perspective, largely through funding from both instruments,« said the Prime Minister
He added that so far, after we successfully negotiated the funds, both for the period 2007-2013 and for the period 2013-2020, the state had a problem with their investment and it was sometimes difficult for a person when he remembered difficult negotiations and then those graphs that showed that we were not exactly successful at pumping. »In this sense, we are now trying to prepare better,« the prime minister emphasized. According to him, the government will hold a working session in Brdo on Wednesday already. »We will agree on how to provide additional capacity to use these funds as productively and as quickly as possible, and to draw up a program, which is also foreseen in the document adopted today,« stressed the Slovenian Prime Minister.
You can view the statement of Prime Minister Janez Janša and his answers to journalists’ questions at this LINK