The Foreign Ministry official urged a prompt deal on the recovery funding but expressed disappointment with the cut to the original proposal which set the multi-annual budget at EUR 1.1 trillion.

The latest proposal, outlined by European Council President Charles Michel last Friday, does not bring a rise in cohesion funds, a Slovenia's priority, while it lowers funds for some important EU programmes such as the Just Transition Fund, a release from the ministry says.

Dovžan thus urged more funds for Slovenia's cohesion envelope to enable the country to adequately finance Western Slovenia, the wealthier of its two cohesion regions.

Slovenia also opposes the proposal to change distribution criteria for funds from the new recovery plan because it cuts funds for less developed EU members.

Slovenia will therefore push for the distribution criteria to remain as close to the original European Commission's proposal as possible.

Dovžan also said Slovenia was in not favour of increasing the rebates for some net contributors.

He believes a digital tax which the Commission would like to introduce in 2021 could serve as a new own source for the EU budget.

This would reduce the pressure on national budgets to finance the bloc's new recovery plan, the ministry added.

In May the Commission unveiled a proposal for the EU post-coronavirus, envisaging the multi-annual budget of EUR 1.1 trillion plus the EUR 750 billion Next Generation EU recovery plan, part of which is the EUR 560 billion Recovery and Resilience Facility.

Michel then proposed the budget funds to be cut to EUR 1.074 trillion while the volume of the recovery plan was kept at EUR 750 billion.

German State Secretary for European Affairs Michael Roth said today he was optimistic a deal could be reached as EU leaders meet this weekend.

All key questions about the volume of funds, the ratio between grants and loans, national envelopes, rebates and new own sources thus remain open for the 17-18 July summit to discuss.