On 6 March 2020, the National Council of the Republic of Slovenia organised a consultation on financial standing of Slovenian municipalities, in which also President of the Curt of Audit, Tomaž Vesel, participated with his opening speech. While introducing the views of the Court of Audit on the discussed topic, he mostly focused on weaknesses and shortcomings in the existing system of financing municipalities and, on the basis of audit findings, drew a conclusion how municipalities could improve their financial position. In this regard, as Mr Vesel believes, it is necessary to consider the commitment of the State itself and actual respectively possible solutions for developing the system of financing in future. He additionally pointed out that the issue of financing municipalities is not to be considered separately but together with other priorities of the Republic of Slovenia, such as uneven regional development, providing public services in all major Slovenian localities enabling at least comparable basic opportunities for education, safety, access to infrastructure and implementation of all forms of economic activities. The dilemma about the transfer of funds from one purse to another is thus less important that the dilemma about the scope of public services which can be funded. In the following years, each of these questions has to be dealt with first in terms of public finance sustainability and only then in terms of optimising the ways and organisation of the implementation.
