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After Brussels assessed in November that Slovenia had stepped up the tempo of structural reforms that are seen as important to tackle imbalances, and established progress in the banking sector repair, and following the Commission's upgrade in its economic forecast for Slovenia, the country was the only EU member state to receive the second consecutive warning of excessive macroeconomic imbalances today.

"It means that Slovenia has had and continues to have quite serious and deep economic problems and it continues to take time in order to correct this. Slovenia has started to take effective action in last couple of months or the past half a year or so but at the same time it's important now to maintain the momentum and in some cases to intensify the reforms," Rehn said about the Commission's latest assessment.

Slovenia has in his opinion done a lot in recent months in order to improve its economic situation, especially as regards the banking sector, "but there are still excessive economic imbalances which require determined action by the government and by other authorities so that the situation can be more sustainably corrected".

"It's now important to maintain the momentum of reform both in the banking sector, in privatisation process and in fiscal policy so that the country can indeed restore its economic competitiveness and the health of its public finances. It's important that the country can reverse the negative trend of indebtedness," Rehn said.

The commissioner would not comment on the operations of the Bank Asset Management Company, which has been under fire in Slovenia. "We are working in close contact together with Slovenian authorities and we support their work in the field of restoring the health of the banking sector".

The European Commission has placed Slovenia under specific monitoring due to excessive macroeconomic imbalances. The commissioner explained that this involved the monitoring of the implementation of EU recommendations in the banking sector, structural reforms and fiscal policy in partnership with Slovenia.

As part of that process Commission missions will visit the country twice a year, based on which the Commission will analyse the situation and then report to the Eurogroup.

Apart from France, Slovenia is the only EU member country to receive Brussels' warning that it should make additional effort to reduce excessive general government deficit, due to a risk the country will be missing the deficit target in 2015.

Asked about the Commission's concrete expectations and whether more austerity was expected, Rehn said: "We want to work in partnership with Slovenia and we provide friendly advice as regards how to restore sustainability of public finances and how to improve the overall economic competitiveness of the country."

Slovenia will have to heed the warnings in the budgeting and reform plans that it must submit to the EU in April. If the Commission assesses in June the action is not robust enough, it can trigger a procedure for correction of excessive imbalances.

Rehn believes that Slovenia will submit bold and substantive enough stability and reform programmes so they include policy measures and such economic reforms that support meeting the objectives defined in the recommendations, as he deems these important for restoring economic growth and job creation.