"The lawsuit was filed in time, last Wednesday, 20 May," said Pogacnik, who is attending a ministerial in Brussels. He added that the government decided for the step because it feels that Slovenia's arguments are justified and that the measure is too severe given the gravity of the violation.
Finding that Slovenia failed to use the EU's agricultural funds appropriately - by using in some cases simple measuring wheels instead of GPS devices to determine the sizes of plots - the European Commission decided in March to cut agricultural funding to Slovenia in the coming four months by EUR 1.5m.
Slovenia believes that the results of the EU audit is not representative of the entire country and that the amount of money determined by Brussels is too high. Officials have pointed out that the EU's audit included only 10 of some 1.5 million plots in Slovenia.
Pogacnik moreover said today that the measuring mistake had in fact been made by the Slovenian inspector and not by the farmer, who got exactly the amount of funds he was entitled to.
This is the first lawsuit filed by Slovenia against the European Commission at the Luxembourg Court of Justice of the European Community since it joined the EU in 2004.
