The council of ZPIZ voted 11-7 in favour of the motion to have pensions increased this year which runs contrary to government plans for a regular increase to be implemented at the start of next year.

It was put forward by the trade unions, which say that an increase in pensions is in order after the economy grew last year and have challenged the government on the issue.

Their victory will likely be a brief one, however, as the government has already said it will veto the motion, which it can do.

"The government cannot and will not endorse a special increase in pensions if it wants to stick to commitments given to its citizens and adhere by international documents," Prime Minister Miro Cerar said after a government session on Thursday.

The government is fighting an uphill battle to keep the budget deficit under 3% of GDP this year, a promise given to the EU, and has said any pension rise would be untenable.

"We would face an unacceptable and inappropriate deficit," said Cerar, who called the motion "irresponsible to the country and its citizens to the point of ignorance".

He said the government had promised to increase pensions but at the start of 2016 in order to be able to meet budget commitments.

This solution was endorsed by government partners last week as parliament passed the supplementary budget following some complaints from the coalition Pensioners' Party (DeSUS).

The party was eventually satisfied with pledges of a hike in early 2016.

In calling for the special pension increase, the ZSSS trade union association said that the national budget would not be directly impacted because the money would come from the state-run pension fund KAD.

While KAD chairman Bachtiar Djalil confirmed that the sum of around EUR 50m needed to implement the hike was indeed available, he said that the long-term future of KAD remained uncertain.