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Country report Slovenia - Work Package 1 Ex post evaluation of Cohesion Policy programmes 2007-2013, focusing on the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and the Cohesion Fund (CF)

Evaluations

Date: 07 oct 2016

Period: 2007-2013

Theme: Evaluation, Structural Funds management and Governance

Languages:   en

During the 2007-2013 period, Slovenia experienced a large-scale economic contraction. After a sharp downturn in 2009, the economy showed a weak recovery in 2010 and 2011, but entered a second period of recession in 2012. Only in 2014 did GDP begin to grow again. As a result of the prolonged period of recession or slow growth, the employment rate declined by over 5 percentage points while the unemployment rate more than doubled, even though it remained below the EU average.

As a further consequence of the recession, the government budget deficit increased progressively, reaching 15% of GDP in 2013, leading to public debt expanding almost fourfold, reaching 83% of GDP in 2015.

Unlike over the 2000-2006 programming period, when regional disparities between the wealthier areas in the West and the less developed ones in the East widened, over the 2007-2013 period, the disparities narrowed as the crisis led to a larger contraction of GDP per head in the Western region than in the Eastern one.