Regional Policy in Slovenia

Slovenia has in recent years achieved impressive economic performance, while maintaining a consistent concern to ensure balanced regional development, notably by allocating subsidies to lagging regions. Since EU accession, additional funding from Structural Funds has created an opportunity to invest in projects that will enhance Slovenia’s endogenous growth potential. Yet in a relatively small country with no elected regional tier of public governance, there has been increasing municipal competition for regional policy funding. Slovenia needs to avoid scattering scarce resources across large numbers of small-scale sectoral projects and diluting the overall impact of Structural Funds. It also needs to help regions undergoing structural adjustment and to build their own capacity to fuel sustainable development. This chapter starts with an overview of regional policy reforms in Slovenia. It then turns to how regional policy reforms can help improve physical infrastructure, including spatial planning, the management of Natura 2000 areas, and transport networks. Finally, it assesses how regional policy can contribute to upgrading human capital, regional innovation capacity and the business environment.