Creating systemic conditions for investment growth

The objective of the reform is to increase public and private investment by simplifying procedures in the area of construction and spatial planning and by reforming the public procurement system.

The reform, therefore, consists of two elements:

1. The amendments to the Construction Act and the Spatial Planning Act which that will improve spatial planning instruments, establish more efficient management of national and municipal spatial planning, and enable digitalisation of key spatial data used for the preparation of spatial planning documents. The amendments will speed up the issuance of permits, while protecting the public interests and providing legal certainty for all actors involved in the construction.

The National Assembly adopted the amendments to the Construction Act in December 2021 and the Act entered into implementation in June 2022. The main goal of the amendments was to speed up permitting in areas of demolition, construction, reconstruction and operation. They also enable faster reaction time in case of natural disasters.

The amended Construction Act is available here.

The National Assembly adopted the amendments to the Spatial Planning Act in December 2021 and the Act entered into implementation in June 2022. The amendments will improve spatial planning instruments, establish more efficient management of state and municipal spatial planning, which will necessarily be supported by digitalization of all key spatial data so that they will be directly used for preparing spatial acts. The amendments also take into account climate change to a greater extent, as the principle of sustainable spatial planning is expended and spatial arrangements must be planned in such a way that they are climate-safe and neutral and enable the reduction of the effects of climate change.

The amended Spatial Planning Act is available here.

2. In the field of public procurement there are several measures planned to improve competition and improve systemic conditions for economic operators and contracting authorities. The amendments to the Public Procurement Act increase digitalisation and competition in public procurement procedures.

Technical assistance is expected to support the implementation of the reform and identify ways to improve competition and to assess and improve the reform. The achievement of the target will signal progress in increasing transparency and competitiveness of the public procurement system in Slovenia. In December 2022, the Ministry of Public Administration presented the results of the Technical Assistance project carried out by PricewaterhouseCoopers, proposing measures to systemically tackle public procurement deficiencies like the high number of single bids. This was used as a basis for the government to propose an amendment to the Public Procurement Act in order to reduce the number of negotiated procedures without prior publication by introducing the obligation for the contracting authority to inform relevant authorities in advance of the reasons for using a negotiated procedure without prior publication and of the measures taken to avoid the need for this procedure. This should help facilitate the reduction of negotiated procedures from 26% to 14%. In February 2023, the National Assembly adopted the amended Act.

The amended Public Procurement Act is available here.

The Public Procurement Academy was established in January 2023 to increase the level of professionalization among public procurement stakeholders through continuous quality education and training for those involved in the implementation of public procurement.

Links to the Public Procurement Academy trainings:

More information can be found at the following links:

Creating systemic conditions for investment growth 1 — Copyright: Slovene government / Ministry of Environment and Spatial Planning

Creating systemic conditions for investment growth 2 — Copyright: Slovene government

Reference: C3.K13.RC in the SI Recovery and Resilience Plan
Project locations: Slovenia

Project website: https://www.gov.si/zbirke/...