Vraničar Erman, who met the European Commission vice president in Brussels ahead of the Commission's assessment of Slovenia's budget plans, again raised Slovenia's reservations regarding the methodology used to assess the fiscal effort.

She pointed to the problems already encountered by Slovenia in the past because of the unusual method used to calculate the output gap.

The results suggest that the economy in Slovenia is overheating and while the Commission agrees this not to be the case, it says it cannot change the methodology just because of Slovenia, the minister said.

She however went on to explain that Slovenia's demands had contributed to a decision that the calculation of the output gap be accompanied with a credibility test, which entails special treatment for Slovenia because of the unclear results of the formula.

Vraničar Erman told the commissioner Slovenia would continue with the efforts started by her predecessor Dušan Mramor, meaning financial consolidation, privatisation, restructuring of companies, and reduction of bad loans, and push for the bad bank to successfully complete its work.