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Obviously EU leaders finally understand the Slovenian genetic problem: we are not able to do anything if somebody with executive power is pressing and pushing us or if something is extremely urgent and threatens our basic existence, as was the situation in the early 1990's. So instead of a general assessment of our Reform and Stability Programme, our sympathetic new PM received a "To Do" list with clear tasks and exact dates. Instead of the famous troika coming to Slovenia, our government will frequently visit Brussels to report on which items from the "shopping list" are already in the basket. How unrealistic and self-centred are our politicians; as shown by their change in behaviour when they go from opposition to government.  Before visiting Brussels our current PM virtually undertook, in front of the Slovenian public, that she would never accept that the fiscal rule should take effect in 2015. After just a few minutes with EU officials, the fiscal rule is incorporated into the Constitution with implementation in 2015 which was, for her, the logical thing to do. Of course she wanted to spin this fact to the voters and said it had nothing to do with the EU however, at the press conference in Brussels following the meeting with the European Commission, her face told the story. Consequently, Slovenian citizens must ask ourselves for who or what our politicians working for, what's their drive? Five minutes of local glory, 10 minutes on a television show, find a job for a family member or friend? If this is true, we are much deeper in problems than we think.

On the other hand we must be frank and fair and admit that our new PM is showing extremely positive energy and will to pull Slovenia out of negativity and general crisis. We must also be proud that Slovenia has made a lot of progress since last year. We adopted pension reform and labour market reform although both of them are in fact a little too soft or insubstantial; all the legal foundations for the so called Bad Bank, which will hopefully end the credit crunch, have been prepared; we adopted the fiscal rule; changed referendum legislation; and changed the bankruptcy law which will speed up bankruptcy processes. All this shows that politicians, on the surface, are slowly changing their attitude at the formal level but the real question is whether this "new", more transparent approach can be adopted in all parts of the public sector and state owned companies. The question is whether we will get clear strategies for the major sectors of our economy, for our tourism potential, finance sector, wood processing sector, will we be able to cut the red tape, improve the investment environment, shorten the process to obtain land for new projects...

The government has a good chance to really start cleaning state-owned companies and agencies with improved corporate governance. Despite big words and formal action at the legislative level, we are still witnessing the continuation of bad practices in government staffing in crucial parts of the economy and in companies. We are spectators to the comedy in the biggest insurer, state-owned Triglav where a group of people, without any real reason, fired the President of the Board; our biggest gaming and tourist company, Hit (also state owned), has been searching for a new CEO for a few months; our highest and most attractive ski resort, Kanin, declared bankruptcy in spite of a record winter because of incompetent leadership and owners (again state or semi-state owners); the Port of Koper is still waiting to hear what will happen with the second pier, second railway track; and the final cherry on the pie is the EUR 1.4bn investment in the new thermo plant, TEŠ 6, which is a first class tragicomedy combining corruption and politicisation at both the local and state level and leadership incompetence of galactic proportions. To clean this mess and to integrate a new mind-set in all parts of state management, this is the real task for the new government. Then we will see if we, all together, really understand the way out of our maze.