State budget implementation suspended

The government announced it will be drawing up a supplementary budget in response to a changed situation, new obligations and changed economic trends.

Available data shows that at the moment all direct budgetary users combined have access to EUR 400 million in unallocated funds.

The government ordered a 30% proportionate reduction in spending rights of all direct budget users for expenditure for goods and services, subsidies, transfers to non-profit organisations and other current transfers home and abroad (without labour costs), and investment expenditure and transfers.

The funding will be reassigned to general budgetary reserves in order to provide sufficient funds to implement urgent measures to curb and deal with the consequences of the coronavirus epidemic.

Finance Minister Andrej Šircelj, who had already announced a supplementary budget in his hearing in parliament, announced on Saturday that baseline measures of his ministry would focus on "providing financial funds to contain and address the consequences of the epidemic".

Taking over from his predecessor in office, Andrej Bertoncelj, Šircelj pledged to work to keep "public finances stable and sustainable and to continue to successfully reduce public debt".

The need for a supplementary budget became obvious on Thursday as the government economic think-tank UMAR downgraded its economic forecast for the country for 2020 from 3% to 1.5%.