The Slovenia Times

Slovenia's exit from excessive deficit procedure not in doubt

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"Most certainly not," Mramor said about the prospects of Slovenia not exiting the excessive deficit procedure due to the negative assessment of the budgetary position, noting that the two procedures were "completely separate."

Mramor attributes the message from the Eurogroup, which he said was not surprising, to methodological differences stemming from the inclusion of the cost of migrations in the budget.

"In the budget submitted to the European Commission for the preliminary assessment of compliance...the costs of migrations had not yet been included. These were added just before the end of the budgeting procedure," Mramor told reporters after a session of EU finance ministers.

He said the treasury was in contact with the Commission to define these outlays as one-off costs rather than structural expenditure.

The government is also in contact with Eurostat regarding the classification of costs associated with the state's participation in debt-to-equity conversions in state-owned companies.

"There are quite a few methodological issues we are clarifying. When these are sorted out, it will be clear whether we are in compliance in 2016 or not. If it turns out we are not compliant, additional measures will be needed."

The Eurogroup said Slovenia's structural effort - the amount by which the deficit will be reduced - is insufficient, at just 0.1% of GDP compared to the EU demand of 0.6%.

According to Mramor, this has to do with the treatment of the costs of migrations and the fact that the Commission estimates the deficit for 2015 was lower than originally projected.

The Eurogroup president, Dutch Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem, said earlier Slovenia would have to do more to correct the deficit.

"I'm sure the Slovenian government will make sure they stay within the rules," he said. But he also indicated that "there is still a lot of debate" about the structural deficit as an indicator.

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