First, awarding the mandate to form a coalition, followed by the forming of a coalition government, and shortly after that the naming of the new finance minister – is how we can sum up the order in putting together a new government. Despite the predictions that forming the new government might take some time, we will now take a look at the situation of the country's financial sector. Prior to the elections not one of the parties, contending to form the next coalition, revealed the names of their candidates to head the finance ministry. The reason – to protect them from being torn apart by the media.

We position the Minister of Finance right beside the Prime Minister. The ministry in question has the biggest amount of money at its disposal, even the money intended for pensioners. It also manages the country's liquidity and foreign debt. In the last 12 years 10 names have held the position. Mitja Gaspari and Dušan Mramor were in charge of the ministry more than once. On Friday, right before the elections, the party presidents told our radio that they already had names or were in the process of discussing candidates. Marjan Šarec stated that his party had four names in mind for the next finance minister, Dejan Židan mentioned a male and a female candidate, Miro Cerar said he had two or three names to choose from, Luka Mesec said he had a selection of leftist economists, while New Slovenia (NSi) said it would more likely put forward the next economy minister, and reportedly had one candidate for the position, but that the party was not yet completely harmonized on the issue. In its past governments the SDS Democrats have never had their own finance minister, but standing out is the former state secretary Andrej Šircelj.

A pile of challenges
The new Minister of Finance will immediately have to establish contact with Brussels on the sale of NLB by the end of 2019. The minister will also face demands from the public-sector, worth at least 260 million euros, and will probably also have to deal with the complicated matter of protecting NLB from Croatian lawsuits. The new minister will also have to adopt the 2019 budget. Meanwhile, in Brussels he will have to contribute to the discussions of deepening the monetary union and negotiate as much finances as possible for Slovenia in the next European budget and the long-term financial framework. The minister will also have the responsibility to manage state assets and possibly even work on a tax reform. That is why the question of who will lead the Ministry of Finance is second in importance only to the position of PM.