Slovenia / General / Services of General Economic Interest Act

Name of the country	Slovenia
Sector	General
Name of the document (original)	Zakon o gospodarskih javnih službah
Name of the document (English)	Services of General Economic Interest Act
Administrative level	National
Type of the document	Legislation
Year of adoption	1993
Foreseen duration	Unlimited
Sector	General
Territorial unit (NUTS/LAU)	SI0
Authority	Ministry of public administration
Availability in English	No
Legally binding	Legally binding
SGI coverage	SGI
Integration as a concept	No
Major objectives	1. Establishing a regulatory framework for the provision of the services and goods in public interest (SGI) 2. Defining the forms of the institutions, confirmed and chosen by the government, which may gain a status of public service and are entitled to perform the provision of SGI, as well as their rights and responsibilities to the government and the users 3. Defining the ways of the SGI provision 4. Defining the ways of financing public services (4/4)
Short Summary	The Services of General Economic Interest Act is the official translation of the act titled “Zakon o gospodarskih javnih službah”, which in direct translation would be “The Public Services Act”. Perhaps this title would also be more appropriate as the services of general economic interest (SGEI) are, in the context of this law, understood as forms of institutions- public services, which provide the services of general interest (SGI), and not as economic services as such. The law also does not provide the definition of SGEI or SGI therefore, a decision was made to use the expression “public services” in translation instead. The Services of General Economic Interest Act defines the forms and the ways of the SGI provision. As stated, the aim of the public service is to enable the delivery of the “material” public goods, and goods and services, whose permanent and uninterrupted prvision is in the public interest (hereinafter referred to as services of general interest-SGI) Therefore the delivery of SGI is ensured by the Republic of Slovenia or a municipality or other local authority in order to meet public needs, when and to the extent they cannot be guaranteed by the market. In case of the SGI provision through the public services the profit is subordinated to the satisfaction of public needs. Main objectives: 1. Establishing a regulatory framework for the provision of the services and goods in public interest (SGI) 2. Defining the forms of the institutions, confirmed and chosen by the government, which may gain a status of public service and are entitled to perform the provision of SGI, as well as their rights and responsibilities to the government and the users 3. Defining the ways of the SGI provision 4. Defining the ways of financing public services The document itself does not specify which are the public service institutions in detail. As stated, these are defined and listed in other laws from the fields of transport, energy, environmental protection, utility and water management, the laws governing other areas of economic infrastructure and other sectoral regulations. The public service institution can be national or local and may be mandatory or optional. Defined by this law, the ways of provision of the SGI are determined by the government at the national and local level, in the form of decrees and ordinances. According to the act the country or the local community provides SGIs in the following forms of institutions and partnerships: a public service unit, a commercial public institution, a public company, and by making concessions. The public services can be financed from the price of the services provided, budgetary funding (in case of services where the end users can not be identified or its use is not measurable), local tax (“optional” tax of local communities for SGI provision), providers’ income, loans, foreign investments and by the use of vouchers. As stated in this act, the Republic of Slovenia establishes governmental bodies for the supervision over the provision of services of general interest, whereby the bodies can supervise multiple public service institutions.
Centralised/decentralised	Not applicable
Governance model	Public services Concession Public-private partnership Co-operative Others Comments
Type of finance	EU Federal/national State/cantonal/provincial Regional Local No sources available.
Sources of finance	Private Public
Stakeholders' list	Federal/national Government, ministries State/provincial/departmental Regional Inter-communal Local Local government, municipalities, service providers, general public
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