"Foreign investments have been met with mixed responses in Slovenia. This represents a major exposure of the entire Slovenian agriculture, not only dairy production," the minister said in reference to news yesterday that Lactalis sealed a deal to acquire a 50.3% stake in Slovenia's largest dairy.

The announcement of the takeover, which is subject to regulatory approval, came exactly a week after a rival bid by Slovenian cooperatives and the DBS bank ended with the bidders failing to net a majority stake in the dairy.

Mlekodel, a milk trading company which acted on the behalf of the DBS bank and 35 cooperatives, managed to increase its stake in the dairy by only 4.44% to 36.41%.

Speaking at a session of the parliamentary Agriculture Committee today, Bogovič stressed he had endorsed Mlekodel's bid for the majority stake in Ljubljanske mlekarne, announcing that action will be taken on this point over the next couple of weeks.

Mlekodel offered EUR 6.50 per share, which valued Ljubljanske mlekarne at EUR 28.5m. It is unclear how much Lactalis has offered for the majority stake.