There would be no budget deficit if 40% of staff were fired, or if their pays were reduced; if pensions were reduced by 20%, and if practically all social transfers were abolished, explained Alenka Bratušek to the Parliament.
"But you won't see that movie in the Alenka Bratušek government, and I hope no one in the future gets the chance to do something like that in our country," PM answered the question of Andrej Šircelj of the Slovenian Democratic Party about the government fiscal measures, and his claim that the budget deficit will reach up to 5% of GDP because of 500 million euros higher expenditure than permitted.
Bratušek denied his claim, and explained that the consolidation of public finances complies with the recommendations given by the European commission, and that disregarding bank recapitalisation, and other exceptional outgoings, the plan remains to reduce the budget deficit to 3.3% of GDP, and to 2.5% in 2015.
She said that you couldn’t stop borrowing overnight. A budget without deficit for this year would be only possible by reducing expenditures by one billion euros. Bratušek praised the decision not to balance public finances at any cost, like the previous government did by the end of its term. A raise in VAT had not affected exporters, who are the driving force of the economy, nor consumption as much as some had predicted. She also emphasized that the property tax "was the fairest decision we could have taken". The government's main goal is to cover the debt incurred by rehabilitation of the bank system through management and sale of assets that have been transferred to the Bank Asset Management Company (BAMC).
Prime minister regrets ministers don't speak out about pressures
Alenka Bratušek said that the problems in healthcare which have been accumulating for 20 years can't be resolved in a year. She regrets that the Health Ministers resigning from office don't speak out about the pressure they had been subjected to. The corruption in healthcare system should be a priority to the competent prosecuting authorities. She explained that on Tuesday she met with the representatives of the Police and the National Bureau of Investigation, and was assured that they will expedite their actions.
The Prime Minister criticized the work of the former Health Minister Tomaž Gantar, who according to her words "in one year, during the term of the previous government, did practically nothing." The MP from DeSUS Party Franc Jurša defended Gantar and said that in his efforts he lacked the support of the head of government.
In her answer to the question of Franc Bogovič (Slovenian People's Party) about the plans regarding stabilisation of the conditions in healthcare system Alenka Bratušek admitted that a comprehensive healthcare reform can't be prepared by the end of the term. But she also reminded that weeks ago she appointed a strategic council for issues in healthcare which has already assembled and discussed the actual problems, and its members agreed that the conditions are acute, and the steps in the right directions must be taken.
Among the priorities in healthcare she emphasized the stabilization of financing of the healthcare system, which can be achieved by eliminating risk of corruption, and by some other measures.
The short-term measures she mentioned included the realisation of the project of joint public contracts in healthcare, reinforcing of the primary level of healthcare, changes in financing healthcare system, and more transparent operation of hospitals.
