‘’There are challenging times ahead of us,’’ said the outgoing minister, explaining that the area of EU Cohesion Policy will see a huge number of activities taking place simultaneously – some of them will be geared at successfully implementing the 2014-2020 programmes, while others will be focused on getting the programming documents prepared in time ahead of the upcoming programming period. The outgoing minister also underlined that not only Slovenia but the whole Europe and world were faced with an unprecedented challenge and situation amid coronavirus outbreak. Dr Mlinar thus highlighted that ensuring stability in work of the government office during this period was crucial. She was pleased that the European Commission confirmed that progress was made as regards the IT system e-MA and that it withdrew its warning of potential suspension of payments to Slovenia which was announced in July 2019. She concluded by saying that Slovenia was on the right track to spend the whole allocation made available to the country in the current programming period and to prepare for the upcoming period as successfully as possible. 

The new minister thanked the outgoing minister for her dedicated work. ‘’I am fully aware that the office has undergone some major changes recently. What we need now is to work together and make concerted effort to make use of all of the funding made available to Slovenia in the programming period 2014-2020 and to ensure that Slovenia gets even, balanced payments from the EU budget in the coming years. I also call on all stakeholders to join forces to get the programming documents ready in time for Slovenia to be able to use the funds of the post-2020 period’’, added Černač.