The inflow of EU funds is back to normal, Finance Ministry State Secretary Mateja Vraničar told the parliamentary Public Finance Oversight Commission.

Commenting on budget implementation, Vraničar said the effort was now focused on the conclusion of projects so that as many refund claims as possible could be submitted to the European Commission by the end of month.

As a rule the cash flow for claims submitted by the end of October is realised in the same year, while those filed in November and December are likely to be cashed next year but will count as this year's budget revenue.

The EU fund phasing is falling slightly below the plan, Vraničar said, noting that the assessment at the moment was that around EUR 1bn could be realised this year, compared to EUR 1.2bn planned in the budget.

Slovenia has implemented all corrective measures needed for the European Commission to unlock the frozen funding. Considering additional claims, an inflow of EUR 248m is expected in the coming weeks.

Brussels auditors found two sets of shortcomings, one of them being the terms of public contracting, specifically the requirement that an expert involved in the project needs to be registered with the Slovenian Engineering Chamber on project application.

The other concern was the appropriateness of corrective measures with positions differing as to the amount of financial correction applied in faults found earlier by Slovenian authorities.

Unofficial information indicates the discrimination against foreigners through membership of the Engineering Chamber could be punished with the loss of 5% of funds in projects for which the discriminatory condition was established.

The funds would be returned to the budget and could be used for other projects.

European Commission officials currently visiting Ljubljana will take part in a conference on Wednesday discussing ways to improve management of EU funds and to secure their safe use.