With half of the funds from the outgoing financial perspective still to be used and EUR 3.24bn available in the new 2014-2020 framework, the government would like to make sure all the available funds are used.

What is more, the government considers the EU cohesion policy the main development policy for long-term growth, new jobs and sustainable development, another reason to set up a new independent office for EU cohesion policy.

The new office is expected to be operational on 1 March, but it is unclear whether it would be run by a minister.

In February 2012 the government of Janez Janša abolished its Office for Local Government and Regional Policy, which had its own minister without portfolio, due to austerity.

Its tasks related to the EU cohesion policy and regional development were taken over by the Ministry of Economic Development and Technology, while policies regarding local government were assumed by two other ministries.

By the end of November 2013, 91% of the available funds from the 2007-2013 period had been allocated for projects around Slovenia; 60.48% (EUR 2.5bn) was paid out from the national budget and almost 55% (EUR 2.2bn) was reclaimed from the EU budget.

Slovenia has experienced the greatest difficulty in the area of environmental and transport infrastructure, where only 32% were phased by the end of November.

The phasing in the Human Resources Development operational programme was at 62% and the phasing in the Strengthening Regional Development Potentials was at 71%.

The ministry told the STA that it was stepping up efforts to make fund-phasing more effective and make the best use of the available funds possible.

Different ministries are thus working on cutting red tape and easing regulation that is slowing down the phasing, while also stepping up the monitoring of projects to improve the quality.

As EU members still have until the end of 2015 to use the funds from the 2007-2013 financial perspective, Slovenia plans to phase EUR 977.7m in 2014 and the rest in 2015.

Of the EUR 3.24bn at Slovenia's disposal in the coming perspective, EUR 855m will go for the Western Cohesion Region and EUR 1.27bn for the Eastern one, with EUR 1.05bn intended for the whole country.