STA, 20 May 2022 - The government adopted on Friday a bill on emergency measures to regulate the situation of displaced Ukrainians and to help Slovenian business cope with the consequences of the war in Ukraine with favourable loans.
The bill was adopted to enhance the implementation of the government's March regulation that activated, based on EU law, Slovenia's temporary protection of displaced persons act to help Ukrainians leaving their homes after Russia's 24 February invasion of Ukraine, the government said after its correspondence session.
The bill aims to intensify the mechanisms introduced by the March regulation in a bid to implement temporary protection for Ukrainian citizens in Slovenia.
It envisages changing certain regulations governing temporary protection to effectively and comprehensively address the situation of persons enjoying temporary protection.
Measures are also planned to disburden state institutions overwhelmed by displaced Ukrainians and speed up temporary protection procedures so that persons with the status can enjoy the assigned rights promptly.
Government data shows that until 12 April, 4,733 Ukrainian citizens filed applications for temporary protection. Unofficial figures from early May were meanwhile by around 1,000 higher.
The bill is thus designed to ease the burden on all related public services - social care, healthcare, public security etc, and eliminate some of the shortcomings that have proved to be a problem in practice.
To help Slovenian companies that have been affected by the Ukrainian crisis, a temporary measure of providing liquidity funds for companies in the form of favourable loans will be introduced.
The loans will be given out through the Slovenian Enterprise Fund, but the government did not say how much money will be available.
The government said that the companies are also faced with rising energy prices and interrupted supply chains, which requires rapid action to prevent the hard-to-repair consequences for the Slovenian economy and the state.
The bill, drafted by the Defence Ministry, was sent to the National Assembly to be fast tracked through parliament.
