Prime Minister Miro Cerar has made a renewed pledge that privatisation will continue after he has come under pressure from the left, in particular with regard to the sale of Telekom Slovenije. "We will continue privatising 15 companies. This is a commitment this country made," he told a TV interview on Monday.
His statement, referring to a list of 15 companies designated for privatisation by the previous government, came after the coalition Social Democrats (SD) appeared to backtrack on privatisation, in an attempt to protect their left flank from the United Left (ZL).
After he was elected full-fledged SD leader on Saturday, Dejan Židan suggested Slovenia could talk to European partners under what conditions the list of 15 could be changed, but Cerar labelled the statement as "utterly unacceptable".
"It is difficult for this party to legitimately debate this in such a way. We shall see what the SD representatives at government level think," Cerar said, noting that the party had been in the government which originally designated the 15 companies for sale.
While Cerar acknowledged that the existing privatisation list is "unsystematic" and "without any firm logic", he said that was "a thing of the past". The government is now drawing up a strategy for the management of state capital assets and expects the document to start truly taking shape "in a month or two".
Source: Slovenia Times
