The whole thing is so absurd that it is starting to seem like a disease – namely, Mrs. Fajon seems to have forgotten who led Slovenia for most of the years after it gained its independence, who set up the system she is horrified by, and – the fact that is the most striking – Mrs. Fajon seems to have forgotten that her party was part of almost all of the governments we have had in the Republic of Slovenia so far, so the SD party is definitely also to blame for the catastrophic housing policy situation that Mrs. Fajon is appalled by. The current opposition, and especially its oldest party, which was part of most governments in independent Slovenia, always blames the Janez Janša government for the problems for which they themselves are actually to blame, because most of the laws and systems that we have, were actually adopted and set up by the transitional left, which stole the country after it gained its independence, the web portal Informer wrote. Tanja Fajon decided to go after the housing policy. Something out of the ordinary? Not really, no, we have heard it all before, but we have not seen anything, not even what was already announced.
Member of Parliament and president of the SD party, Tanja Fajon, organised a round table on housing policy last week. On the website of the Social Democrats, they wrote that the housing policy in Slovenia has unfortunately not received any systemic support ever since the independence, which is reflected in the unregulated real estate market, high prices and insufficient rental housing. “In our country, young people stay with their parents for a very long time, but on the other hand, the elderly live in oversized flats that are difficult to maintain. Resources for the financing of the construction of rental housing are limited. And the economic crisis that is the result of the coronavirus epidemic is only making this situation worse,” they also wrote. Fajon also added on Twitter that the housing crisis is the result of letting the market shape the housing policy for the last 30 years. Therefore, the SD party has introduced a law that will enforce a budget source for the construction of 10 thousand apartments by 2030. It will provide a state guarantee for long-term loans for the construction of public rental apartments with a maturity of up to 50 years and regulate opportunities and incentives for housing cooperatives. “We will soon present the law to the public and submit it to the National Assembly of the Republic of Slovenia,” she announced.
Fajon is known to talk a lot but actually say very little and do even less. As we were able to see for ourselves, as Borut Rojc posted a video on Twitter, which shows that in 2008, Breda Pečan promised a lot of things, namely: “The Social Democrats will first take care of the accelerated construction of non-profit, publicly owned rental housing, housing units, and housing, adapted for people with special needs. With the encouragement of the municipalities, we will provide all of the necessary conditions for them to accelerate the provision of publicly owned building land for housing, promote public-private partnerships, and subsidise the renting of private housing with tax relief and tax exemptions,” she said, among other things, and even announced a special goal – the establishment of a special fund for transitional rental housing, which would be intended for young families. According to Pečan, the fund would start with 10 thousand flats and then gradually increase. She emphasised that the Social Democrats would introduce a long-term national strategy for housing care, adapted to the needs and abilities of individuals.
Slovenian Minister for development and the EU cohesion policy, Zvone Černač, replied to Fajon on Twitter, writing that she was a little bit late in coming up with her idea: “After all the governments you have been in so far, and on top of the fifty years before that? During all of that time, you mainly took care of the studies and financing of the non-governmental organisations! A few weeks ago, the current government approved the business policy of the housing fund of the Republic of Slovenia, which means that 5 thousand new rental apartments will be built by 2025.”
“10 thousand apartments were promised by the SD party back in 2008 already. And I support that now, just as I have supported it back then. However, in the 12 years, I realised that this project, like many others, does not have the support of the party leadership and the parliamentary group,” wrote the municipal councillor on the SD list and chairman of the SD municipal committee of Ilirska Bistrica, Borut Rojc, who knows the SD party well. He critically added that it is not fair to blame the current government for not solving this problem.
Sara Bertoncelj
