NLB CAPITAL INJECTION POSTPONED
Slovenia's largest bank, the NLB, decided to postpone a EUR 250m capital injection to the first quarter of 2010 on 28 December, because its two biggest owners, the state and Belgian bank KBC failed to reach an agreement on terms under which the Belgians would take part in the capital injection. NLB is in majority state-ownership, while KBC holds a 30.6% stake. Finance Minister Franc Krizanic, who confirmed the news for STA, added that the state would carry out a capital injection on its own. He however left the window open for other owners, including KBC. According to him, the KBC will decide by 11 January about the potential cooperation.
The issue of fresh shares was originally planned to begin on 28 December and run until 11 January 2010.
Central bank governor Marko Kranjec said that he was not worried about the capital injection being put off. For the central bank this is not a tragedy, since Slovenia's largest bank has enough capital if its operations remain within the existing volume, he said.
Prime Minister Borut Pahor told the press after a government session on 30 December that the NLB needed a strategic partner with whom the state will have a shared interest in the markets of the Western Balkans and the wider region. He said however that in case that the KBC wished to withdraw, the government would be looking to find an ambitious partner with large-scale plans, but a partner who would be ready to consent to not being the bank's majority owner.
GOVERNMENT ADOPTS EXIT STRATEGY FOR A "MAKE-OR-BREAK" 2010
The government adopted on 30 December, during its last session of 2009, a draft exit strategy that includes short-term measures and reform proposals for health care, pensions and the labour market. Prime Minister Borut Pahor said after the session that the exit strategy would be tailored to achieving the government's aims for 2010, which included a 1% economic growth and survey-based unemployment below 7.5%, as well as a 0.5 percentage point cut in the budget deficit. According to Pahor, Slovenia was among the first countries in Europe to start drawing up an exit strategy.
In November, the European Commission gave Slovenia until 2013 to cut its budget deficit to below 3% of GDP as determined by EU rules. In the recommendations Slovenia was urged to begin taking measures to cut its deficit in early 2010 and cut its budget deficit by between 0.75 and 1 percentage point annually.
A swift fiscal consolidation will be one of Slovenia's top priorities, as the small country needs to put in extra efforts to maintain a good credit rating in the government debt markets. The exit strategy is also aimed to act as a cornerstone for a sustainable long-term development of the country in the post-crisis period, according to Finance Minister Franc Krizanic.
With expectations of employees and employers clashing in several chapters, the exit strategy and its implementation will certainly be one of the toughest nuts for the government to crack.
Calling 2010 a make-or-break year, Pahor also said that the main issue would be the competition among economies. "By next Christmas it will be much clearer which economies will be the winners and which the losers." He added that Slovenia had to take part in the competition and do everything it could to emerge a winner.
INITIAL ESTIMATES OF CHRISTMAS FLOODS REACH MILLIONS OF EUROS
Christmas floods left a trail of destruction in parts of the country and initial estimates put the damage into millions of euros. The state begun to survey damage and estimates suggest the damage will exceed EUR 3m in the Gorenjsko region (NW) alone. The floods were caused by torrential rains and the melting of snow between 22 and 26 December.
Slovenia's biggest insurer Zavarovalnica Triglav estimated on 28 December its share of the damage would stand at around EUR 2m. The government decided on 30 December that damage estimates should be concluded by the end of January. Defence Minister Ljubica Jelusic said after the government session that the cabinet wants to discuss the damage reports at the beginning of February. The cabinet tasked the Administration for Civil Protection and Disaster Relief and the Environment Ministry to speed up the evaluation process to meet the new deadlines. Once the government will discuss the reports, the Environment and Spatial Planning Ministry will have to prepare an action plan for dealing with the damage.
According to Jelusic, the Environmental Agency managed to forecast the floods in time, which enabled effective assistance and rescue missions. The government also praised all volunteers who helped in the relief efforts.
CHRONOLOGY:
SATURDAY, 26 December
LJUBLJANA - Slovenia observed the 19th anniversary of the day when the results of a referendum on the country's independence were officially released. The Independence and Unity Day celebrates the 88.5% support of all eligible voters for Slovenia's independence from former Yugoslavia in 1990.
SUNDAY, 27 December
LJUBLJANA - Cable TV is being rapidly superseded by the internet-based IPTV technology. In the third quarter of this year IPTV had a market share of 38.3%, up over ten points year-on-year, whereas the share of cable shrank from 72.3% to 61.7%, according to a quarterly report on the electronic communications market.
MONDAY, 28 December
LJUBLJANA - The EUR 250m capital injection for Slovenia's largest bank, NLB, through the issue of new preferred shares planned for the end of 2009, was put off to the first quarter of 2010, because the main owners - the state and Belgian banking group KBC - failed to agree on terms under which the Belgians would take part in the capital injection.
LJUBLJANA - Central bank governor Marko Kranjec told public broadcaster TV Slovenija that he was not worried about the planned EUR 250m capital injection of the NLB bank being put off to the first quarter of 2010. For the central bank this is not a tragedy, since Slovenia's largest bank had enough capital if its operations remained within the existing volume.
LJUBLJANA - The majority of those polled in a survey published by daily Delo disapproved of the opposition Democrats (SDS) leader Janez Jansa's call for a mass demonstration in the street next spring. While 61% of the respondents believed the call is inappropriate, 28.6% approved of it.
LJUBLJANA - 55% of those polled in a survey carried in business daily Finance think the government needed some replacements, with the main candidates being Environment and Spatial Planning Minister Karl Erjavec and Finance Minister Franc Krizanic. Asked about their support for the cabinet, 48% of the respondents said they did not approve of its performance, whereas 39% did.
LJUBLJANA - Factor banka was the third Slovenian bank to obtain a loan guarantee under the EUR 12bn state guarantee scheme adopted in November 2008 to help alleviate the credit crunch.
LJUBLJANA - The right-leaning weekly Reporter reported that the publisher of Slovenia's leading newspaper Delo might change hands as soon as January. According to the report, Delo will be bought by Italian financial firm KB1909, the majority owner of left-leaning weekly Mladina. Delo's biggest owner Pivovarna Lasko denied for STA it was selling the company.
LJUBLJANA - The Maribor District Court started receivership proceedings at financial firm Infond Holding. Creditors have until 29 March 2010 to register their claims against the debt-ridden company.
LJUBLJANA - The Office of the Information Commissioner investigated insurance companies Vzajemna and Tilia on the charges of illegal exchange of personal data and imposed fines of EUR 112,000 and EUR 108,420 on them respectively with additional fines of EUR 20,000 for the persons in charge. News portal 24ur.com reported that Vzajemna passed personal information of its former clients to Tilia without legal grounds or their consent and thus earned the highest fine in the history of the office.
LJUBLJANA - The Christmas floods left a trail of destruction in parts of the country and initial estimates put the damage into millions of euros. Slovenia's biggest insurer Zavarovalnica Triglav estimates its share of the damage will stand at around EUR 2m. The state has begun to survey damage and initial estimates suggest the damage will exceed EUR 3m in the Gorenjsko region (NW) alone.
LJUBLJANA - The seasonally-adjusted business sentiment indicator for Slovenia was level in December compared to November, but was higher by seven percentage points year-on-year, according to the Statistics Office.
TUESDAY, 29 December
LJUBLJANA - The majority of Slovenians are unhappy with the performance of the Slovenian government, while a fifth think the government is doing a good job, a survey conducted by polling firm Valicon found. According to the poll, 32% of Slovenians are very unhappy, another 26% are unhappy, while only 21% are satisfied with the work of the government. Asked about how they would describe life in general, only 29% said they were satisfied or very satisfied, compared to 46% who said they were not content with their current situation.
LJUBLJANA - Finance Minister Franc Krizanic told STA that adopting incentives that would allow those facing the prospect of long-term unemployment to get a job will be a priority of the government in the post-recession period. The government was planning tax breaks and special incentives in a bid to help this group return to employment.
NOVA GORICA - The group around car electronics manufacturer Iskra Avtoelektrika filed a criminal complaint against its former management led by Ales Nemec on suspicion of abuse of office and falsification of documents. The former management is thought to have caused several million euros in damage to the company.
BORMIO, Italy - Slovenia's Andrej Jerman convincingly won Tuesday's World Cup downhill event for men in Italy's Bormio, making his and Slovenia's second downhill win in history.
WEDNESDAY, 30 December
LJUBLJANA - Slovenia's annual inflation rate rose 0.2 percentage points to 1.8% in December, despite a 0.5% monthly drop in prices, the Statistics Office said. The average inflation rate in Slovenia this year stood at 0.9%. The biggest increase this year was seen in prices of alcohol and tobacco, which rose 8% owing to increases in excise duties at the beginning of the year. Although rising by less than prices of alcohol and tobacco, 6.3%, home expenses contributed the most to the annual inflation rate.
LJUBLJANA - Prime Minister Borut Pahor told the press after a government session that Slovenia's largest bank, NLB, needs a strategic partner with whom the state, the bank's majority owner, will have a shared interest in the markets of the Western Balkans and the wider region.
LJUBLJANA - A survey published by daily Delo shows that only a half of the respondents manage to save up some money each month. As much as 60% of those included in the poll could not survive six months off their savings if they lost their job.
MARIBOR - Slovenia's second-largest bank, the NKBM, announced it had sold EUR 26m worth of bonds with characteristics of innovative financial instruments. Institutional investors and the state each bought half of the issue. The bonds carry an annual fixed interest rate of 8.7% with no set period of maturity.
LJUBLJANA - Prime Minister Borut Pahor said that his government may lose its parliamentary majority after he makes his decision on the future of embattled Environment Minister Karl Erjavec. But he said this thought would not change his decision on Erjavec's fate.
LJUBLJANA - Prime Minister Borut Pahor said that the government's aims for 2010 included economic growth of 1% and survey-based unemployment of below 7.5% as well as a 0.5 percentage point cut in the budget deficit. Taking stock of the year at a press conference, Pahor said that Slovenia is "one of the economies who weathered the effects of the crisis relatively well". Calling 2010 a make-or-break year, he said that the main issue would be the competition among economies.
LJUBLJANA - The government decided at its session that damage estimates for last week's floods should be concluded by the end of January. Defence Minister Ljubica Jelusic told the press that the cabinet wants to discuss the damage reports at the beginning of February.
LJUBLJANA - The legislation preventing deputies from simultaneously serving as mayors, deputy mayors or city councillors will be included in the bill on public sector integrity, daily Delo reported. In November, the coalition sponsored motion was rejected in form of amendment to the deputies act.
LJUBLJANA - The opposition Democrats (SDS) pointed out in a press release that the national investigation office the government is setting up on 1 January lacks a legal basis, as changes to the police act that the government adopted in November have not yet been passed by parliament. The executive branch has trampled over the legislative branch by imposing its decision and making the matter a fait accompli, thus rendering an independent decision impossible, the SDS said. The Interior Ministry responded by saying that the SDS's claims had no basis. They are a political attempt to "destroy a well though-through expert proposal, which follows EU guidelines and recommendations of organisations such as the OECD and the Council of Europe", it said.
LJUBLJANA - The Office for Slovenians Abroad is concerned over the situation of the Slovenian minority in Italy. It joined calls of the minority organisations about Italy not fulfiling its legal obligations towards the minority and the cutting of its funding. The office fears that cutting the funding (under the 2010 Italian budget the Slovenian minority faces the prospect of a 20% or EUR 1m cut in state funds) could jeopardise vital interests of the Slovenian community in Italy.
LJUBLJANA - The government established an independent agency which is to boost quality in higher education. The agency is based on the amendments to the higher education act which the National Assembly passed in October.
LJUBLJANA - Slovenia was falling behind when it comes to the Kyoto Protocol targets for cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, but it can boast a high share of power produced from renewables and substantial investments into making the Slovenian industry greener, showed a survey on environmental indicators.
ASUNCION, Paraguay - Asuncion, the capital of Paraguay, named a street after Slovenian anthropologist Branislava Susnik (1920-1996), who led the country's main ethnographic museum for forty years. Her field work among South America's indigenous peoples represents an important contribution to the continent's linguistics.
THURSDAY, 31 December
LJUBLJANA - Slovenia was leaving behind a year of trials, while the coming year is an opportunity for thorough changes and improvements that will ensure the wellbeing for the following generation, President Danilo Tuerk said in his New Year's message. Tuerk is certain that the worst economic crisis after the WWII is over and there are already some signs of recovery.
LJUBLJANA - It seems that the worst is over and 2010 will be a better year that will allow Slovenia to start demanding structural reforms and increase its competitiveness, Prime Minister Borut Pahor said in his New Year's message. Pahor noted that unlike in 2009, problems awaiting the country in 2010 and possible solutions were easier to predict.
LJUBLJANA - Opposition leader and the Democrats (SDS) president Janez Jansa told daily Dnevnik that his call for large-scale protests next year had been taken out of context and "reinterpreted". "It is a shame that only two sentences from my speech are being constantly repeated while weighty topics that were discussed by academics are being ignored," he told Dnevnik's supplement Objektiv in an interview.
FRIDAY, 1 January
LJUBLJANA - Crowds of thousands braved the bleak weather to bask in New Year's festivities on the streets and squares of major cities and towns across Slovenia. Music, fireworks and parties greeted 2010 as revelers around Slovenia bid farewell to the old and started the new. Over 30,000 people descended on downtown Ljubljana on Thursday night as all of the capital's major squares traditionally offered scores of performances by popular musicians, who made sure that all generations and musical tastes were seen to.