Last week, Prime Minister Robert Golob was vehemently misleading when talking about his government’s tackling of inflation, but data from the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia show in black and white that he was telling lies. Golob’s statement that inflation is lower than it was when his government took office is, of course, untrue. Is his prediction that Slovenia will avoid a recession true, then?
The first regular coalition summit took place last week at Brdo pri Kranju. According to the mainstream media, Prime Minister Robert Golob assured that Slovenia will avoid recession. According to the Prime Minister, the government also deserves credit for “reversing inflation trends in Slovenia faster than the other countries in the euro area with a determined and well-thought-out policy.” “Today, we are happy to say that when this government took office, the annual inflation was at 10.8 percent, while today, it is at 9.9 percent. In the same period, inflation in the euro area has risen from 8 percent to almost 11 percent, which means that Slovenia has reversed inflation trends faster than the other countries in the euro area with a determined and deliberate policy. This is the best proof that our actions were timely and effective,” Golob praised his team and himself.
However, Golob’s claim that inflation is lower than it was when the government took office is not true. “Golob is misleading! His government took office on the 1st of June.
Inflation was at 8.1 percent in May, at 10.4 percent at the end of June, and peaked at 11.5 percent in August. The high jump in inflation in June was the result of his ill-advised relaxation of energy prices in June (chaos at petrol stations,” warned economist Matej Kovač. In the style of Golob, Minister of Labour Luka Mesec also said that, based on talks with labour ministers from other countries, he had concluded that we were the best performer on a number of indicators of the draining crisis. He did not cite any indicators. He did, however, mention who is doing worse than us – Latvians and the Dutch. As if he is a primary school pupil who always finds someone who is doing worse than himself in class to somewhat mitigate his own failure. But unfortunately, Slovenia does not fare any better, even if we find an example of someone who is worse than we are. Minister of Foreign Affairs Tanja Fajon was also satisfied with the work that has been done so far, according to the national media outlet Radio Television Slovenia’s web portal, MMC, adding that she was also satisfied with the measures in the area of healthcare. Sometimes, it seems that we live in a completely different country than those on the left side of the political spectrum.
According to Eurostat, the European statistical office, annual inflation in Slovenia was 10.6 percent in September, which is close to the average of the other European countries. Inflation was slightly higher in the European Union as a whole (10.9 percent), and slightly lower in the euro area (9.9. percent). The autumn report of the European Commission puts us in a similar position, forecasting price growth of 9.2 percent for Slovenia this year, which is slightly below the EU average and 0.7 percentage points above the euro area average. For 2023, the forecasts predict inflation of 6.5 percent for Slovenia, which also puts us between the EU and euro area averages. The economic growth forecast for 2023 has been downgraded, falling below 1 percent for the first time. As for fears of a stalling economy, Golob said optimistically that “no matter where we look in the economic sector today, no one is pointing out any other issues other than the shortage of labour.” So will Slovenia be able to avoid a recession, as Golob optimistically predicts, or is this just more of his misleading?
Sara Kovač
