Slovenia confirms receiving Brussels budget letter
The Finance Ministry said that Brussels had not asked Slovenia to come up with any concrete measures until today, when the deadline for Slovenia's response passes.
The Commission urged Slovenia on Friday to update its budget plans for 2019 to ensure compliance with the EU's fiscal recommendations.
The budget plan the government submitted by the mid-October deadline contains only measures that have been already adopted, with no new measures planned for 2019.
The Commission said that Slovenia's structural effort was projected at a negative 0.7% of GDP, which runs contrary to the recommendation that Slovenia budget a structural improvement of 0.65% of GDP.
However, Brussels noted that the Slovenian government committed to update the plan as soon as the budget bills for 2019 were sent to the Slovenian parliament.
The Commission, which had sent similar letters to Belgium, Spain, France and Portugal, confirmed having received Slovenia's response, saying it would carefully examine it.
However, it provided no answer as to whether they were happy with the response and whether they at this point expected concrete measures against Slovenia.