Dear guests, welcome to today's press conference in the wake
of the coalition summit of MPs from the coalition
and government ministers.
We're joined by Prime Minister Golob, Foreign and European
Tanja Fajon, the leader of the Left's parliamentary group
Matej Vatovec and Finance Minister Klemen Boštjančič.
Today's summit was intended to analyze the tax situation
and the reforms of the school system, the latter of which
is still being debated. To tell you more, here's the Prime Minister.
Thank you. Allow me to begin by addressing another topic.
Yesterday, we again saw where hate speech leads to
with an attack on activist Nika Kovač.
We condemn in the strongest terms not just the perpetrator
who carried out the attack, but also all those
who encourage hate speech and verbal or physical violence,
especially against women. This has become a common
occurrence in Slovenia, and politicians should ask
themselves whether it's right for them to take part in this.
Unfortunately, many politicians are incapable of rational judgment.
I again appeal on everyone to refrain from encouraging hate
because that leads us nowhere.
We've announced a step to combat this, which I'll now repeat.
This Friday, the Strategic Council on Preventing Hate Speech
will meet for the first time.
Three interest groups will take part:
representatives of the relevant ministries,
individuals whom I'll invite to take part,
and representatives from the NGO Center,
who carried out a tender for this.
The individuals I invited include Dragan Petrovec,
as an eminent expert in this field,
as well as Nika Kovač, whom I invited
to lead the Strategic Council and to act as the National
Coordinator for hate speech prevention.
I can't think of a more appropriate person
precisely because she is the most exposed victim of hate speech.
Unfortunately, she isn't the only one.
As mentioned, today's coalition summit had two topics.
We introduced the planned changes to the tax code.
The guidelines remain unchanged from what I have already announced.
We know that Slovenia has some of the highest labor taxes
in the world and some of the lowest property taxes.
These realizations are important, but it's just as important
to first determine the net income of individuals
and only then to tackle any changes
when we know the individual's true assets.
The changes will be guided by transparency
and a clear overview of the actual assets and income.
This will be followed by changes to the income tax legislation and...
changes to the property tax.
According to the timeline, we'll try to start in 2024
with changes to the income tax legislation to decrease
the income tax burden, and proceed in 2025 with property tax reforms.
We set up this timeline on purpose because the assessment
of actual assets is somewhat more complex
than the assessment of income.
According to the guidelines, the current property tax,
which falls under the responsibility of municipalities
and is already in effect, will remain unchanged,
so that things remain comparable to the current situation.
That's our starting point. We have enough time until 2025.
The debate will be public, transparent, and inclusive.
We'll try to achieve a social consensus
on how to collect enough tax revenue
to reform Slovenia into an even fairer society.
Taxes aren't intended for someone to do weird things with them.
Their only purpose is for us to live
in a socially just state, and that's why we're
modifying the tax code.
A few brief words regarding education reform.
This debate is sometimes hidden from our eyes.
The timeline is even longer, with some changes
beginning in the 2023 school year,
most of them being introduced in 2024,
and some lasting until 2026.
That's mostly because many curricula will finally begin to change.
We need a large number of expert groups for this.
I believe there are 216 just for curricula
14 for high school programs, and so on.
All this takes time, but it's one of the things we'll tackle
and carry out by the end of this term.
One of our key goals is to adapt schooling and the curriculum
to the challenges of our age:
a green, sustainable orientation on one hand
and digital literacy on the other.
That's it for now. -Thank you, Prime Minister.
The next to speak is the Minister for Foreign and European Affairs.
I would like to add my condemnation
of yesterday's attack on the head of the March 8 Institute,
Nika Kovač. Any such physical or verbal attack
or expression of hate is unacceptable.
I've frequently expressed my support of Nika Kovač,
especially during the most recent campaign,
which is about raising awareness with an emphasis on love.
I call on everyone to refrain from hateful comments,
low blows, insults, particularly those directed at women,
which are totally unacceptable. Perhaps you'll now understand
why we've recently talked so much about the need to ensure
gender equality in Slovenia, while strengthening human rights,
which include the rights of women and girls.
Regarding today's discussion, I'd like to begin
with changes to the tax code.
We heard a good analysis with good starting points today.
The coalition's guidelines are appropriate,
and I'm satisfied with the discussion.
We need to do two things first. We agree that we need
to see a greater public impact of our spending.
We need to boost public funding sources to cover the needs
of all people, and we need to create a fairer system.
This means that we must distribute the tax burden more fairly,
so that those who have more will also pay more.
This will undoubtedly be one of the most challenging reforms.
It's never pleasant to talk about taxes, and these reforms
will be both complex and much needed.
Today, we agreed that we'll utilize different working groups,
composed of experts and citizens, to achieve a broad social consensus,
which such a reform needs.
The only way to ensure the health of our public finances,
and to carry out the plans we've promised over the past few months,
is to finance these entitlements from taxes
and contributions and not by increasing debt
and deficit-spending. I believe we all agreed with this today.
The recommendations of the Finance Ministry,
based on the initial assessment of the Social Democrats,
are ideas that we can support to a large extent, especially
when it comes to property tax reform.
The assessment of assets will be a difficult challenge.
We also cautioned that recipients of capital gains
should be taxed through progressive tax brackets
instead of the current, unfair flat tax rate.
This is the part about reform of the tax code.
As for the modernization of the school system,
based on the new circumstances and the fact that this issue
has been ignored for years, I can only say that we heard
some starting points, but the debate is ongoing,
and we'll discuss the starting points and the timeline in detail
over the next few weeks, but it's clear that we'll also need
a broad consensus in this area. Without involving people,
both experts and laypeople, in this discussion,
we politicians, including the government with the opposition,
won't be able to make these important changes
to improve the lives of people. Thank you.
And the representative of the Left, who is standing in for the minister.
Hello. I would like to join in the condemnation of the attack
on Nika Kovač. The Left strongly condemns all
expressions of intolerance and acts of physical violence
against individuals who hold different views.
We've seen too many such incidents over the past few years,
so we're happy to see the formation of a group
that will work on establishing measures to limit
such hate speech.
We have many possibilities and plenty of latitude.
It's right that everyone lives in a society
where he or she can express an opinion without fear.
As for the coalition summit, I'd like to point out
that the Left is satisfied with the starting points
presented by the Finance Ministry. It's an important step
toward reforming the tax code by making it simpler
and more transparent as well as, most significantly, fairer.
It will be fairer because it will allow social needs
of the 21st century to be met. We all know that we're facing
numerous challenges brought on by the modern world, including
the environmental crisis, but also other circumstances we face
every day, such as our aging society and the lack
of solidarity-oriented infrastructure.
This makes tax reform important to redistribute wealth
in a fairer manner and to reinvest it into society,
so that people will have the most benefits from what we produce.
As I said, the starting points presented here
are a very good basis, and I feel that the dialog
that took place at the summit moved in the right direction
and shows that we can now make additional steps.
As for the modernization of the education system,
this is another important issue that is sadly often
not among the top priorities
but is crucial in our changing world if we want to ensure
our children and others who are getting an education
a successful journey through the education system.
The ministry has prepared extensive debates, and I'm happy
that one of the expert panels will be led by Dr. Vogrinc
from the Faculty of Education and will be very broad-based
in that it will identify the needs of our school system
in terms of personnel and other changes.
This is another coalition summit that has concluded
with a positive view toward the future
and that's how this coalition functions. -Thank you.
And now, the eagerly awaited Finance Minister.
Greetings on my behalf.
As others have pointed out and as we had predicted,
we presented our starting points for changes in the tax code today.
The Finance Ministry has worked on these starting points
since last year. As you know, we changed a part of the tax code
last year. This affected five laws.
What we're discussing now will probably affect more laws.
A key finding is that the needs of society and the tax system
no longer match, and there's growing discrepancy between the two.
We wish to use the tax code to address
these increasing needs of society. I'm glad we've agreed
that the capabilities of the state are limited.
As you know, fiscal rules are being reintroduced,
so I'm happy we'll be able to take this into account when preparing
the starting points for next year. As for the tax code changes
themselves, an analysis of the current situation was the key.
It turns out that for the past 20 years, we used amendments
of various laws—and sometimes we even ran out of letters
used for the amendments—
to implement various partial solutions.
We failed to look at ourselves in the mirror and examine
the system as a whole. That's what we addressed today.
Our analysis examined this.
We didn't want to go too far. The key findings that we presented
touch on two areas. The first is the income tax.
This is where we feel the needs are the most acute.
The Finance Ministry is advocating a transition to the system
of net income taxation.
This is a system based on tax relief rather than deductions.
To a large degree, this will help make our system simple,
transparent, and easy to understand, while preventing
tax optimization in ways that were never intended.
The second area is real estate. As we've mentioned,
we're moving toward mostly progressive taxation.
For the most part, this won't affect the majority
of Slovenia's population. That's also the case with the other laws.
We don't foresee major changes, but we should see
easier use and tax relief, while one of our goals
is to make the tax burden based on the economic
situation of each individual.
Today, we presented our starting points to the coalition.
We've left things relatively open on purpose
because we wish to continue the discussion.
In the days and weeks to come, we'll open up the debate
to both experts and the general public.
As you know, taxes affect and interest everyone.
We'd like to be transparent and clear.
That's why our timeline looks the way the Prime Minister described it.
We'd like to take enough time for the areas that are the subject
of most speculation. The goal is a reformed
tax system that will be simple, transparent, and based more firmly
on the idea that more should be paid by those who can afford it.
Thank you. I'd now like to open the floor
to two questions for the coalition presidents. We'll then continue
with education reform, which is also important.
I invite media representatives to step toward the mike if you have
questions for the presidents of the coalition parties.
Go ahead, Anže. -Anže Božič, POP TV.
I'm not sure if the Prime Minister or the Finance Minister
will be able to answer this better, but what does this "meta" taxation
mean exactly, and my second question... -It's "net" taxation.
Oh, "net" taxation. I understood it as "meta" taxation.
But I'd still like to ask you for a few explanations.
And Mr. Prime Minister, I'd like to ask you for your reaction
to the irregularities at the Ljubljana University Hospital,
namely supply chain issues and the fragmentation of orders.
Do you feel that all this is fine?
Perhaps the Prime... -Go ahead.
Yes, because you'll get to listen... Please proceed.
Meta is apparently the company that owns Facebook.
Concerning the...
As for healthcare, when we were selecting the team
to tackle our healthcare reform, we purposefully chose
our two most prominent fighters against corruption.
It wasn't by chance. What is being uncovered now
is the result of personnel choices
within the team overseeing healthcare.
I don't wish to comment about specific people,
let alone investigations, because I believe that what
we're hearing in the media is sadly just the tip of the iceberg.
But what I want to say is that we do not intend to stop at this,
but we want to get to the bottom of it, not only retroactively.
We all want to prevent such things from happening again in the future
by completely reforming the healthcare system on the one hand
and digitising the same system on the other.
The only way to avoid the systemic corruption
that we can perceive in healthcare
is a complete transparency.
The first two laws which will be presented shortly,
i.e. digitisation and the Health Insurance Institute laws,
will achieve exactly that.
We want to achieve transparency in the use of healthcare money.
Only when each of us, each patient,
can see where their money went and who was paid for their service,
will we be able to prevent such excesses,
which the media are now discovering, from being repeated in the future.
They will be eradicated.
This is my comment,
but I would also like to express a lot of praise to the current team,
because they took this on
without considering the consequences for themselves.
They have my personal gratitude. -Thank you.
Any other questions? Yes, go ahead.
A question on the tax reform. Minister Fajon said that...
I would like to know if there was a consensus
among all the coalition partners on the tax reform,
did you disagree on anything? And for the Prime Minister
regarding the school reform, you have announced some changes for 2023,
can you be more specific? What is in store for this year
and what is your vision of digitisation in education?
Just two sentences about this.
Today we started the process for the first time,
we got the starting points on the table, so there was no disagreement,
the debate did not go in that direction,
we listened, we exchanged views,
I think now there will be many opportunities in working groups,
by talking with the professionals, with the civil public
to continue exchanging ideas and views.
We started a similar discussion and are conducting it within the SD,
so there will be many opportunities to find this broad social consensus,
but we universally agreed that this will be a great success,
a very urgent reform, a very difficult reform,
and that we therefore need to listen to and hear each other.
Mr Vatovec.
The ministry presented the starting points,
including very concrete analyses of where we are currently at
at the level of the EU member states in terms of tax coverage
and what our expenses are.
We presented some starting points for a possible solution,
as already said before, we all agree that these orientations are correct,
that what is proposed
and what can perhaps also be read between the lines
goes in a positive direction to achieve the goals
that this coalition has set for itself.
From this aspect, as was said, a very good and fruitful discussion,
which will probably lead to concrete and good results in the future.
And about the school reform. What are the dates?
We are talking about the first measures,
certain starting points will be confirmed by May 1 this year,
then the work and the appointment of these commissions will begin.
In the 2023 school year, the first measure that will be implemented
as part of these changes
will be the update of nutritional guidelines in schools.
We want to bring healthier food to schools on the one hand,
but on the other hand, we will also implement some measures,
pilot projects on ensuring that school kitchens work more economically,
and also healthier,
and introducing the principle of sustainable cultivation,
sustainable development and land cultivation into the school system.
These measures are planned for 2023.
The others, which concern changes to the curriculum,
are planned for 2024 or later.
What was the other question? Digitisation.
In digitisation, there is only one key goal and it is logical,
the unification of all digital content at the national level.
During Covid-19, we could see
that it was left to the greater or lesser literacy of individual teachers.
In the course of this year, and then I think in 2024,
we will prepare and start to use
a unified digital basis for teaching materials.
Anything else on this topic?
No, but I will ask you anyway. Vitomir Petrović, Planet TV.
Prime Minister, you have touched on the fight against corruption,
so a question you avoided on Friday. Was it a constant practice in Gen-I
when you led it that foreign diplomats were financed
through bypass companies to obtain energy deals?
Why didn't you report the identity theft to the Romanian police?
Will you and Mrs Vuković finally explain those transfers?
You avoided this answer on Friday.
Not at all, I have answered all these questions several times,
first in the pre-election campaign,
at least three times in public debates.
All these questions were produced artificially and falsely
by the ruling party that led the government at the time, i.e. the SDS.
I have no problem explaining that,
but the election campaign ended, the elections are behind us.
I believe this pains a lot of people, but not me.
What I will say now is that just a month ago,
we took the next step,
we established an investigative commission in the parliament,
which deals with exactly what you are asking me,
it deals with how the previous administration abused
repressive authorities with the purpose
of persecuting political opponents.
You will get all these answers and more shortly, and not from me.
They will not be subjective, but objective,
the conclusions will be handed over
to the relevant law enforcement authorities.
This is the best answer all Slovenians can get,
because we are adhering to the principles of the rule of law,
the country finally respects the rule of law again and will work.
As far as ... So that you will not be too dissatisfied with my answer,
I would like to tell you that I didn't report identity theft
to the Romanian police, but to the Romanian prosecutor's office.
The Romanian prosecutor's office will pass it on to the police.
Don't doubt it, because I believe in the rule of law,
not only in Slovenia, but also in Romania. -Thank you.
I would like to thank all three representatives
of the government parties. The Minister of Finance will take over.
Thank you. -Thank you. -Go ahead. Net taxation.
Let me go back a step. As I understand it,
immediately after this event, there is another event
where my colleagues from the ministry,
i.e. the state secretary and director of the directorates,
will continue to answer probably some more detailed questions,
because we will continue the Government session shortly.
But to answer the question about net taxation,
I'll go back a step, maybe I'll answer
two questions at the same time that I'm sure you're interested in.
If I were to combine all that was said at the coalition today
into a few key points, the first is that...
As I said, we didn't want to go too far.
We didn't want to come up with the identification of the problem
and the solution, because then the discussion with the coalition
and the wider and professional public would be a moot point.
The fact is that certain things have accumulated in the tax system
in the last twenty years, and we have presented this.
Now the discussion will follow, we only gave some starting points
of the direction that the ministry sees.
Three key points related to this are...
One is the system of net taxation,
which I will come back to,
the second is the addressing of property tax.
We are talking mainly about real estate.
In this context, we are also reviewing other possibilities,
which are very modest,
so don't expect too much.
Regarding real estate, we have already said
we are going in the direction of progressive taxation.
The Ministry of Finance finds it more reasonable
in terms of value than just the number of properties.
The third point is that
through the laws and amendments to these laws
that have been adopted in recent years,
we have identified several questions we want to address.
Whether this is within the VAT, primarily a system of reduced rates,
or is it a system of reliefs in corporate income tax.
These are the things that we want to discuss in the coming weeks and months.
I believe there will be certain changes here as well.
As far as net taxation of incomes
or changes in income tax legislation is concerned,
this proposal is, in my opinion, important.
Now we have a system of deductions,
we have a system where, in fact,
individual incomes are very vaguely intertwined.
On the one hand the salary, on the other hand, certain people
receive certain social transfers.
The system is such that no one even knows how to calculate exactly
or understand the income tax return
that we receive in our mailboxes.
Through this system and through these various amendments
to the Income Tax Act, we got a very unclear system.
My state secretary calls it a bird's nest.
We propose a system of tax deductions
that will be the same for everyone.
This means the zero-income tax bracket,
today the first income tax bracket is at five thousand euros,
may increase significantly in the future.
This means that in this package we will address the issues
of various credit ratings or tax deductions
that have crept into the system over the years.
We have to know that over the years we have been solving
the issue of relatively high taxation of wages
through reliefs such as transport to work, food, holiday pay,
the thirteenth salary.
Through this we tried to solve this high burden on wages,
so no one knows how to calculate it exactly.
The system that we are proposing...
We would have a unified system,
we would transfer a part of today's untaxed income
to the zero-income tax bracket.
Because of this it can increase considerably,
we can even talk about several thousand euros.
This will significantly simplify the system.
On the other hand, all individual incomes are also taken into account,
even social transfers,
and with this we address a series of anomalies of today's system.
For example, a businessman told me
some of his employees did not want the thirteenth salary,
because the additional income could reduce
their social transfers too much.
We want to make a simple system
where all income will be counted in the same basis,
and from that there will be various deductions,
whether it is for dependent family members or whatever.
Thank you, you were very comprehensive. Any questions?
Mrs Fajon mentioned the progressive taxation of capital gains.
What kind of progressive?
You have to ask Mrs Fajon. This was their proposition.
This is what she proposed at the coalition meeting.
We were talking about the progressive taxation of real estate.
Their party suggested that we also consider
the progressive taxation of other assets.
In this specific case of capital gains.
That is all I am able to tell you. -Thank you.
Okay, was that all?
Thank you for being with us and have a nice day.