141st regular session of the Government of the Republic of Slovenia

SLOVENIA, February 13 - The draft amendment to the Organisation and Financing of Education Act regulates areas that ensure the development and higher quality of education in Slovenia. The main change in the draft amendment approved by the Government is a new provision setting the amount of funding for development and investment in education at 0.5% of gross domestic product (GDP). This legal provision will fill the gap that has been created in the field of education over the past decades. The allocated funds will support development tasks, programmes and projects, as well as investments in education infrastructure. From 1 January 2027, funding will increase annually by an average of 0.025 percentage points of GDP, subject to budgetary availability, until the target of 0.5% of GDP is reached. In addition to this key change, the amended Act also addresses other important aspects of education funding. It is worth highlighting the provision that allows institutions for pupils with special needs, music schools and primary schools with adapted programmes to receive investments in their tangible assets not only from the founding municipality but also from neighbouring municipalities. Because of their smaller student populations, these institutions often serve as "regional" centres, offering programmes attended by children and pupils from several municipalities. The updated draft also addresses various organisational aspects and updates the system for appointing school principals. In addition to the aforementioned provisions, it also formally recognises Slovenian sign language and tactile sign language as official languages within the education system, in line with the Constitution of the Republic of Slovenia.

The draft amendments to the Fiscal Rule Act will facilitate the conduct of the fiscal policy by harmonising the fiscal policy legal bases on the national and EU levels after the adoption of amended EU fiscal rules. The drafting of the Act included various stakeholders, including the Fiscal Council. Under the amended fiscal rules, the fiscal policy must follow the prescribed medium-term path and limited growth in net general government sector expenditure, as opposed to the multiannual targets, which can be affected by data revisions (for example to the gross domestic product and the EU ESA methodology aggregates) and changes in the macroeconomic projections of various institutions, as well as exceptional circumstances and one-off expenditure. The key is to prevent differing requirements on the EU and national levels, which will facilitate the conduct of the fiscal policy and eliminate inconsistencies that arise in fiscal rule planning and follow-up. At the same time, the proposed Act partly transposes the recently recast EU Directive on budgetary frameworks.

The Government issued a Decree Amending the Decree on the method of determining and calculating the contribution for ensuring support for the production of electricity from high-efficiency cogeneration (CHP) and renewable energy sources (RES). The amended Decree temporarily extends the exemption from contributions for all households until 1 July 2025. This will enable a softer transition for households from the system of regulated electricity prices back to the market system without drastic increases in electricity bills. Electricity end users with a connected load of over 43 kW that is seasonal in nature (for example the electricity used for cableways and irrigation systems), are now paying disproportionately higher CHP and RES contributions in the months when electricity is not consumed as a result of the new method of calculating network charges. With the amended Decree, these final users, who would pay the contribution based on the measured charge that is lower than the minimum capacity charge, can pay the contribution based on the charge achieved rather than the minimum charge.