The government has tasked the ministry to draft plans for the overhaul by the end of April.

"The overhaul will be conducted in a way to cut total costs and give each part of the government the opportunity to rebuild the very foundations of their IT capacities," the ministry said.

IT-related costs in 2012 stood at EUR 86m. About EUR 34m was spent on new hardware and software and EUR 36m on maintenance. The ministry said costs were down 13% compared to the year before, primarily due to an almost 25% drop in spending on new hardware and software.

The ministry had previously been considering to switch to open-source IT solutions. In 2011, a study on feasibility was conducted and found significant potential in open-source, but the project was eventually shelved due to budget cuts.

The ministry currently has no concrete plans for the introduction of open-source software bar "trying to use free open-source software wherever possible".

A partial switch to open-source has however been successful at Slovenia courts, which have in the past years replaced Microsoft's office software with open-source alternative Openoffice and other free open-source software. The Supreme Court has estimated that the switch helps save over EUR 500,000 annually.