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It's really surprising how difficult it has been, in recent years, for Slovenia to adopt and implement an efficient strategy. At the moment we can say that thank goodness that we are in the EU and the eurozone, forcing us to at least adopt minimum stabilisation measures. But the EU can run out of patience, this is more than clear from the recent warnings from Commissioner Olli Rehn who "reminded" us that we made some clear promises in the spring and that those must be implemented in practice, not just on the paper, otherwise we will face more pressure and less understanding from Brussels.
Let see what has been done in the last few months. The plan was more or less clear: 1. stabilise the banking sector through the bad bank project, 2. Further sustainable stabilisation of public finances, 3. deleverage the economy, 4. put together a transparent plan of privatisation, 5. start one or two strategic projects using EU funds, international capital and some internal reserves in the public sector. So where are we today?

Cleaning up the banking sector is progressing with the same pace as in the last two years - more or less we are not moving ahead. The bad bank project is waiting for additional stress tests requested by the EU because they just don't believe our data. There is still a credit crunch, even more so. In the first days of September the Central Bank surprised us by starting the liquidation process of two smaller banks holding around 4% market share. This move was coordinated with the EU but there is a lot of controversy around the action, primarily because of the huge state guarantee for the deposits which should obviously prevent any speculation about the stability of other, much bigger, banks. At the end of the day we can say that our banks are still deep in crisis and not helping companies find their way out of stagnation

If we look at the current state of public finances it is more than clear that additional cuts should and will be made, probably with the "help" of the European Commission. To be honest, the government was successful in signing an agreement with public sector unions, but the agreement is just not enough and it's just too short term. It's clear that the public sector in general does not understand that the current situation is not just temporary but at least mid term. Our public sector is simply too big for the current economic potential of the country. On top of the already high tax burdens, the government has adopted higher VAT and some other tax increases and by the end of the year we can expect also a new real estate tax. The way we are heading is just not helping the economy.

If we take into account the situation in the banking sector and public finances, it's very clear that the third goal, deleveraging the economy, is not moving ahead as planned. Companies are still struggling with excessive debts and development projects are on hold. The adopted law that should help the economy in deleveraging is still only on paper, as usual.

Concerning privatisation, the government has compiled an "ad hoc" list of 15 companies that will be privatised but more than clear is that there is no strategy behind it, they are just doing what Brussels asked them to do. For now, nothing serious has happened in this area, we will see what the autumn will bring.

I won't even start analysing the progress on the strategic state projects because there is nothing to analyse for now, only the professional competence of our leaders. We can just conclude that they are extremely incompetent or they are intentionally "playing" with the country. Both are very bad and damaging to our future. Controversial political staffing in state owned companies, which is moving ahead at full speed, is just another cherry on top of the cake and is further lowering our credibility.

But on the other side of this "depressing" Slovenia we can be happy that there is also a different, more agile Slovenia. Our export oriented economy is constantly growing, we have some companies that are becoming global champions, and we are very successful in other areas. Our sportsmen are proving that, with global thinking we can be the best in the world, such as the successfully organised European Basketball Championship. Concerning all the abovementioned problems, we must do everything so that this positive and modern Slovenia will beat the incompetent and clueless political elite who are still in power today.