By: Spletni časopis
After the referendum, in which a striking 93 percent of voters rejected the proposal for the Ministry of Culture to automatically grant more than three thousand euros in net pension to all Prešeren Award recipients – and slightly less to other state award recipients – the National Assembly now faces a dilemma: whether to abolish a law from the socialist era that still gives the government the right to exceptionally grant such lifetime pension supplements to distinguished individuals in the fields of culture, science, and other areas.
The result of the referendum – which proposed distributing benefits to deserving individuals in the field of culture even more generously than under the law from the era of Josip Broz Tito (1974) – was as follows: 92.5% against and 7.5% for.
The SDS proposed repealing the 1974 law before the referendum, at a time when the ruling parties falsely accused them of fighting to keep the socialist-era law in force. SDS also demanded an extraordinary session of parliament to abolish socialist-era benefits. According to the constitution, the ruling coalition must convene such a session, but today they also added several of their own bills to the agenda and pushed the decision on privileges to the very end – presumably to downplay or hide it. Parliament will also face the dilemma today of whether to legalise euthanasia.
Thus, SDS proposed the abolition of privileges from Tito’s era: “If the majority of voters on Sunday, May 11th, 2025, vote against the Law on Pension Supplements for Exceptional Achievements in the Field of Art (ZDPIDU), then, based on the clearly expressed will of the people, the Law on Exceptional Recognition and Pension Awards for Individuals with Special Merits (ZIPO) must also be repealed immediately.” The proposal to abolish ZIPO was first signed by SDS parliamentary group leader Jelka Godec. Under this old law, several hundred privileges were granted by the governments of Janez Drnovšek, while subsequent governments together granted only a few dozen. The government of Robert Golob also granted a few most recently.
If ZIPO were repealed, a special law for athletes and sports officials – passed in 2017 at the initiative of PS, SAB, and DeSUS MP Peter Vilfan (who has since also become a recipient) and adopted by MPs from SMC, DeSUS, SD, and NSi – would remain in force. Under that law, more than a hundred privileges have already been awarded in recent years.
The first athlete to receive a high lifetime pension supplement was handball player Vlado Bojović, who won a silver medal at the 1982 World Championship in Germany with the Yugoslav national team. Born in Kriva Palanka, Macedonia, and the son of Lieutenant Colonel Čedomir Bojović, he became involved in the murder of truck driver Anton Kušar in Celje a year after the peak of his career. The trial was moved to Kranj, where he was sentenced to one year and two months in prison – notably, he had been interning at the court in Celje. He received the highest pension privilege, even though the law stipulates that those with a final conviction are not eligible. The state has no record of the conviction or of it being expunged, as I discovered upon checking. The conviction was deleted, and even the state’s own record of it was destroyed.
Among the dilemmas hurriedly added to the extraordinary session – seemingly to reduce the attention on the privilege issue – is also euthanasia, which was supported by a majority of voters in a consultative referendum held last year.
However, Speaker of the National Assembly Urška Klakočar Zupančič rejected the possibility – at the meeting of parliamentary group leaders (which SDS representatives no longer attend in protest over her past arrogance) – that parliament might, for the first time, also debate the government’s pension reform proposal at the same time. This reform would raise the retirement age and extend the period used to calculate pensions. SDS had also requested this debate. She explained that such a debate is not yet possible this month because two other legislative procedures – amending the law on social welfare benefits and the law on individual investment accounts – must first be completed, as they regulate the same social relationship. Nonetheless, the law on individual investment accounts will be before MPs today – at the same extraordinary session.
