Slovenia
Overview and recent developments
Slovenia has adopted a whole-of-government framework for regulatory policy, which is set out in a number of government resolutions and documents, such as the Resolution on Legislative Regulation and the Rules of Procedure of the Government. RIA and stakeholder engagement are compulsory and are almost always conducted in practice for primary laws in Slovenia. Stakeholder engagement is often done for a short period and RIA often includes only a qualitative assessment, although the situation has improved modestly. Slovenia could strengthen oversight of these regulatory policy tools to ensure that they are used effectively.
Slovenia was an early adopter of the Standard Cost Model (SCM), and has focused ex post evaluation efforts on reducing administrative burdens for businesses ever since. Now, Slovenia has consolidated regulatory reforms through the “Single document” to target particular irritants and has also initiated selected sectoral reforms.
The new Modular Environment for the Preparation of Electronic Documents (MOPED) is currently in the implementation phase. It will simplify the preparation of documents in the legislative process. Within MOPED, all stages of the legislative process will be standardised, forming an integrated legislative cycle. In addition, Slovenia introduced a Small and Medium Enterprise Test (SME Test) to help ministries estimate regulatory costs to businesses.
The General Secretariat of the Government is responsible for preparation of the Legislative Work Programme, ensures that government material conforms to the Rules of Procedure of the Government and informs the proposer if something is missing, such as a RIA. The General Secretariat may also require the proposer to submit legislative material to working groups or established government councils, if the working group or council has not yet considered the proposal. Oversight of many regulatory policy tools is primarily within the Ministry of Public Administration (MPA), which checks the accuracy of the administrative cost impact. The MPA also draws attention to the barriers still left in the proposal and provides training in regulatory policy. Proposers of regulation engage with the MPA through interministerial consultation. The Government Office of Legislation (GoL) examines law proposals by the Government and those acts for which the National Assembly seeks the opinion of the Government. If the GoL gives a negative opinion on a proposal, the ministry must amend it.