Motor rally through the deficit

The President of Slovenia will go on an official visit to Spain by car

Slovenian President Janez Drnovšek is going to hit the budget deficit with a motor rally. He intends to go on an official visit to Spain from Ljubljana in his official car. The head of this former Yugoslav republic, which was the first to declare independence from Belgrade, simply does not have enough money for more representative transport. But today it is no longer possible to cancel the visit, scheduled for early October and long in preparation, said presidential press secretary Jana Lutovac Lach.

Wanting at any cost to meet the inflation “corridor” and budget deficit limit allocated by the European Union for its new members, the Slovenian government introduced an austerity regime for civil servants. It also extended to the head of state, who was recommended by the cabinet of ministers to “reduce activity in some areas” in the second half of the year. In the parliamentary republic that is Slovenia, President Drnovšek could only complain that for the first time in 15 years of independence, the head of state and the cabinet of ministers were unable to find a common language. “The government has shrunk the budget of the Presidential Office to such an amount that it does not allow it to function normally. Obviously, therefore, the government wants the president to show greater financial discipline,” Interfax quotes a statement from Janez Drnovšek posted on his official website.

In essence, Slovenian ministers exchanged the comfort of an individual president for cash euros for all citizens of the country. Already in January 2007, Slovenia will become the first newcomer to the European Union, endowed with the right to introduce a single European currency into circulation. In July, at a meeting of the ministers of economy and finance of 25 EU member countries in Brussels, for outstanding achievements in curbing inflation (2.4% against the European “ceiling” of 2.66%), Ljubljana was allowed to begin minting small euros and eurocents. It is expected that by the end of the first month, Slovenes will exchange their usual tolars for the euro, and the country’s old currency will cease to exist.

And President Drnovšek needed only half a million US dollars to survive until this joyful moment without loss of reputation. As the Slovenian newspaper Delo reports, in 2006, 767.9 million tolars (just over $4 million) were allocated for the maintenance of the presidential office. In the first half of the year, 60% of this amount had already been spent, but at the same time, the head of state planned an extensive program of international visits for the second half of 2006. Attempts to request an additional 180 million tolars (950 thousand US dollars) did not find understanding from the Ministry of Finance - Drnovšek was promised only 85 million.

From that moment on, the presidential protocol service no longer had to work on preparing foreign visits, but looked for forms of polite refusal. Recently, the Slovenian President's trip to New York for a meeting of the UN General Assembly has already been cancelled. Janez Drnovšek's working visits to the Czech Republic, Macedonia and Albania have been postponed for next year. It is noteworthy that the head of Slovenia does not even try to say he is sick or explain the postponement of the visit by “changes in the internal political situation.” To be honest, there is no money and there won’t be any (until the end of the year).

Well, in order not to bring his diplomats to a completely pre-infarction state, Janez Drnovšek agreed to go to Spain by car. Although the distance from Ljubljana to Madrid along the roads of Slovenia, Italy, France and Spain exceeds 2 thousand kilometers. Moreover, representatives of the European Commission have already sarcastically hinted that the trip could be easier if the Slovenian government fulfilled all its obligations to its neighbors. Yesterday, the Slovenian agency STA quoted the statement of the project coordinator of the 5th Pan-European Highway, Loyola de Palacio, who officially expressed concern about Ljubljana’s failure to comply with the previously agreed schedule for the construction of the Slovenian section of this route.

Fedor SEREBRYANSKY, Vladimir DZAGUTO