Considering that Slovenia has two cohesion regions, the committee called on to the government to draw up two operative programmes, and to coordinate the documents' content with the development councils of both regions.

A report on the phasing of cohesion funds in 2007-2013 that has been drawn up by the Ministry of Economic Development and Technology shows that Slovenia received by the end of August a little below EUR 2bn from the EU budget, which is only 47.8% of the available funds.

This year EUR 270m had been realised or 30% of the amount planned in the supplemented budget for the year.

Delays are attributed to bankruptcies of construction companies that would have implemented the EU-funded projects, municipalities' liquidity problems, the many complaints and revisions affecting public calls for applications, red tape and lack of specific expertise, especially in the field of public contracting.

State Secretary Andreja Kert told the committee the government was planning to adopt an action plan next week to minimise the risk of losing the funds.

The session was also attended by Raphael Goulet, who is responsible for relations with third countries at the European Commission's Directorate General for Regional Policy. He believes it would be difficult for Slovenia to avoid losing a part of funds by the end of the year.

He agreed that one of Slovenia's main problems was the large amount of complaints in various procedures. To deal with the problem, the Commission proposed establishing a special body for public procurement, which Goulet indicated Slovenia rejected.

According to him, an average 52% of available EU funds are used at the EU level, while Slovenia ranks 13th in terms of how well it draws EU funds. But Goulet said the financial absorption of the funds could not be the goal in itself, as the key question was what the money is used for.

In the next EU budget period, Slovenia would have one billion euros less in available funding as in the 2007-2013 period, which is why the EU official said it was vital for Slovenia to use the funding even more effectively.

The EU is expected to have ready by December a legislative framework that would allow the freezing of cohesion funds for the countries that do not meet fiscal and reform goals, which Goulet said should not be an excuse for delaying reforms.

Local government representatives on the committee called for more partnership between the state and municipalities in the phasing of EU funds, and complained that cohesion funds in the new financial perspective were intended mainly for the private sphere.

In 2014-2020 Slovenia will have EUR 3.3bn available for economic development, employment and sustainable development; EUR 860m will be available to the western cohesion region and EUR 1.12bn to the eastern region, according to committee chair Jožef Horvat.