The legislation was passed to speed up the processing of asylum requests, but at the same time it tightens the conditions for asylum and cuts deadlines for legal recourse.

Most notably, asylum applications are automatically considered inadmissible if the applicants have entered Slovenia from a safe country.

Given that Slovenia is surrounded by EU countries, this means few requests are likely to be granted.

The new law also stipulates that unsuccessful asylum seekers get only three days to appeal decisions, while a one-off allowance for refugees of EUR 288 has been scrapped.

The legislation elicited strong criticism from NGOs, which had argued prior to the latest changes that Slovenia had one of the strictest asylum laws in Europe.

Amnesty International Slovenije for example described the legislation as a "significant step back from guaranteeing all asylum seekers the right to have their asylum application effectively determined".