Opposition Parliamentary and other Parties about the Ownership Reform

Ljubljana, 9 September - The Social-Democratic Union of Slovenia, the Liberal-Democratic Party, the Party of Democratic Reform, the Socialist Party, the New Social Democracy, the Workers Party, and the Party of Christian Socialists have today organized a session, at which they discussed the proposal for the laws concerning the ownership reform of companies, denationalization, and co-operatives. Beside the three oppositional parliamentary parties and the four extra-parliamentary parties, representatives of the profession, the Free Syndicates of Slovenia, and the syndicate "Konfederation 90", also attended the session. Before the beginning of the session a work-group shaped a mutual stance, which is defined in 11 points, and constitutes the new concept of the Legislation. In their opinion the legislation must return to the phase of a draft, while the Slovenian Government and Assembly should assure a multi-party coordination, on a political level, concerning the basis of the law. The crucial outlines are: present collective property cannot be appropriated by the state; privatization should assure immediate management to the interested new owners - which does not adhere in the case of the state and its institutions; the assets, which the companies acquisitioned through privatization must remain part of the production economy; employees (workers and management) must retain the right to make independent decisions about the form of privatization; the employees should, through discounts, be given the possibility to become co-owners or managers of the companies; pension funds should become co-owners without the right of management; all citizens of Slovenia should enjoy the rights requisitioned from the abolishment of collective property on equal principles; the state must prevent misconduct at acquiring collective property, keep control, and assure democratic decision-making of the management; the agricultural territories of companies will be given to the fund of agricultural territories only if they are not a basis for production; denationalization must not cause economic damage, retroactive intervention into already achieved ownership relations must be banned. The President of the shadow government called attention to four principle questions. He said that workers must be subjects and not objects, as defined by the government law, it is necessary to accept diverse forms of ownership - private, collective, co-operative, state - and also companies must become subjects with a chance to choose the form of ownership reform, the law must create conditions for the development of management.