International Cooperation

Relations with European Union

Starting points for the preparation of negotiating starting points of the Republic Slovenia for sector No. 9 – transport.

Republic Slovenia is adopting in the domain of transport legal system of the European Union and it does not require a transitional period or exceptions.

Legal system of the Republic Slovenia in the domain of transport is partly harmonised with the acquis communautaire of the European Union.

In Road transport the legal system of the Republic Slovenia will be entirely harmonised with acquis communautaire by passing the Law on Transportation in Road Transport (end of year 2000), Law on Transport Contracts in Road Transport (end of year 2001) and adopting regulations for enforcement of above mentioned laws ( at the latest till the end of year 2002).

In Rail Transport the legal system of the Republic Slovenia will be harmonised with acquis communautaire by passing the Law on Rail Transport, Law on Safety in Rail Transport and Law on Transport Contracts (until the end of year 2000) and the implementation of acquis communautaire will start at the latest when Slovenia will become a full member of the European Union.

In Maritime transport the legal system of the Republic Slovenia will be completely harmonised with acquis communautaire by adopting the Maritime Code and appropriate regulations (at the latest until the end of 2001).

Navigation on Rivers, Lakes and Canals will be on the whole harmonised with acquis communautaire by passing the Law on Safe Navigation on Rivers, Lakes and Canals, the Law on Water and regulations for their enforcement ( at the latest until the end of 2001).

In Air transport the Republic Slovenia will reach the complete harmonisation of its legal system with that of the European Union until the end of 2002.

In so called Horizontal matters ( Trans-European networks) the legal system of the Republic Slovenia will be harmonised with acquis communautaire until the end of year 2000.

Republic Slovenia will join the agreements in the domain of transport concluded between European Union and other countries on the day when it will become a full member of the European Union and this will be done by ratification of these agreements at the latest until the end of the year 2002.

The legal system of the Republic Slovenia in the domain of government subsidies and determination and implementation of economic public services in transport will be completely harmonised with acquis communautaire until the end of June 2001.

Combined transport will be harmonised with acquis communautaire until the end of 2000 by the adoption of the Decree on Combined Transport which acts as a regulation for sector laws in the domain of rail, road and maritime transport.

Republic Slovenia has so far established most of the necessary institutions for integral and complete implementation of acquis communautaire, but:

• in rail transport it must set up the Direction for Rail Transport, a body within the Ministry, responsible for transport and must re-organise public enterprise Slovenske eleznice d.d. (Slovene railways Ltd.);
• in air transport it must strengthen and train the existing institutions;
• in road transport it must strengthen, train and enable more efficient work of existing institutions;
• In maritime transport it must adjust maritime inspection services to the conditions and methods of work in European Union.

Main Documents

• Complete Document - Enlargement and European Union Transport Policy, November 2003, (MS Word, 13 pages, 3.55Mb)

Slovenia vs. EU

Slovenia is a relatively small country with a specific geographic location. Across the country some shortest connections are passing from South-West to North-East and from North-West to South-East of Europe. This advantage (seen as a disadvantage by environmentalists) is revealed in the EU programme of the Trans-European networks with the 5th corridor (Barcelona-Torino-Milano-Ljubljana-Budapest-Kiev) and the 10th corridor (Munich-Ljubljana-Zagreb-Belgrade-Athens). With the Adriatic port of Koper (together with Trieste and Monfalcone in Italy and Rijeka in Croatia) the best maritime connection for cargo coming into Central Europe from the Middle East is available here. This brings about different opportunities for developing transport and logistic centres within the area.

Settling within Slovenia is quite dispersed, with the majority of people living in small towns (only two towns have more than one hundred thousand inhabitants). Although the polycentric development is a political priority in Slovenia, the existing transport infrastructure (especially the motorways) is more serviceable to a centralised development. To support a more regionally decentralised development the secondary road infrastructure will have to be improved.

Slovenia is quite aware that in the international competition the quality of infrastructure and its maintenance is an important factor for attracting foreign direct investment. In times of global economy this is indeed of paramount importance for individual countries. Significant investments in transport infrastructure (most of it in motorways) have already taken place during the last decade. They were financed from domestic sources (through tolls and fuel prices) and by foreign loans (from EIB and EBRD). Due to the budget restraints and the growing foreign debt of Slovenia other possibilities are being debated at the moment (e.g. Public-Private Partnership for transport infrastructure financing and concessions for road maintenance). It is expected that investments in railways and air transport infrastructure will receive high priority in the future.

Legislation within the transport sector has been mostly harmonised with the EU legislation. Mayor problems caused by the accession of Slovenia to the EU are expected in road (with small carriers and with the enforcement of technical, environmental, fiscal and social regulations) and railway transport (privatisation of the Slovenian Railways). Some further legal adjustments will be necessary in air transport. The accession of Slovenia towards the EU will also remove barriers to competition and give Slovenia better access to the common market. But Slovenia will also be more open for foreign competition, which could cause problems to domestic transport operators (especially to railways and small carriers in road transport).

Motorization level has been growing rapidly in the 90s and is now close to the EU average value. Extensive use of private cars has contributed to a very poor safety record, although the situation has been slowly improving during the last 6-7 years. One can expect that it will improve further with new transport infrastructure and with its better maintenance, but other measures will have to be taken also. Road traffic is also a very significant contributor to environmental damages. It is therefore an important task for transport policy to achieve a more favourable modal-split in passenger (less private car use and more of public transport) and goods transport (less of truck and more of rail transport). This will demand modernisation of the public passenger transport, railways and nodal points for combined transport.

The transport sector within a national economy

The transport sector is an important part of the national economy. It contributes a significant share to the total gross value added and gives employment to many workers. In Figure 1, the relevant data for the selected set of countries are presented. Due to the availability and comparability of the data, we had to concentrate on sector I of NACE classification (covering transport, storage and communication).

The contribution of this sector to the total gross value added is between 6 and 12 percent and for employment between 5 and 8 percent. The corresponding shares for Slovenia in the year 1999 were somewhere in the middle of the given intervals.

From the macroeconomic aspect the transport sector in Slovenia is important also because of its positive contribution to the balance of payments.

Transport infrastructure

The efficiency of transport services is predominantly determined by the density and quality of the available transport infrastructure (putting aside the organisational superstructure). In Figures 2, 3 and 4 data on the availability of transport infrastructure, namely the density of the road and rail network, are presented. Density is measured in route length per square kilometre and in route length per capita.

For some countries the situation relative to both indicators is very different (Scandinavian countries, the Netherlands) but not for Slovenia. According to both indicators Slovenia is positioned somewhere in the middle.

The situation is quite favourable if we examine motorway density (see Figure 3): Slovenia is already close to the EU standard. For the use of Slovenian motorways, users have to pay tolls what is in accordance with the EU transport policy for covering the costs for infrastructure use by the users. It also seems important to note that the Slovenian Motorways project is partly financed from the “Gasoline Tolar”.

The national Programme for Motorways Construction is financed from the so-called Gasoline Tolar. At the beginning 16% of the retail price of oil derivatives was ear-marked for financing of the project. This share was later raised to 20%. After introducing the value-added tax in the year 1999 this scheme has become obsolete and part of the collected funds was used for other purposes. A correction of the National Programme of the Motorways Construction is expected and the time of its completion will be postponed till 2015 (according to some information). It is also expected that a fixed amount of money per year (in real terms) will be devoted to the Motorways Project based on taxes on oil derivatives.

Rail density in per capita terms is highest in the Scandinavian countries (with low population density) but is also relatively high in the CEE countries where railways were built as backbones of the transport systems. The density of the Slovenian rail network per capita is somewhere in the middle, while density per square kilometre shows a different picture. The countries with the densest networks are Czech Republic, Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany. The density of the Slovenia’s network is close to the EU15 average.

Besides data on the availability (expressed in terms of density) of transport infrastructure, data on the quality of infrastructure are of paramount importance. We are not aware of any regularly estimated and published data for Slovenia that are related to the quality of its transport infrastructure. As a second option we present data (in Figures 5 – 8) that are collected for the Global Competitiveness Report (GCR).

The World Competitiveness Report; World Economic Forum, Geneva, Switzerland (the last edition is for 2001-2002). Indicators are based on the following scales:Accounting for road quality outside of major cities, the typical driving speed between cities is (1=10 km/hr, 7=150 km/hr)Railways in your country are: (1= underdeveloped, 7= as extensive and efficient as the world’s best)Port facilities and inland waterways in your country are: (1= underdeveloped, 7= as developed as the world’s best)Air transport in your country is: (1= infrequent and inefficient, 7= as extensive and efficient as the world’s best)

According to the GCR-2001 the Slovenian transport infrastructure is ranked in the lower part of the selected countries. Only for port infrastructure is the quality of the average value.

According to the road infrastructure quality indicator, Slovenia is ranked 16th (together with Hungary) among 19 countries of our selection (with Ireland and Poland lagging behind). Slovenia (together with Portugal) is ranked 16th also for the rail infrastructure development (with Ireland and Greece lagging behind). Slovenia’s ranking of port infrastructure quality is 11th and the following countries from our selection are ranked behind Slovenia: Italy, Greece, Ireland, Slovakia, Portugal, Poland, Czech Republic and Hungary. Slovenia’s ranking of the air transport infrastructure quality is 16th (together with Poland) and the countries lagging behind Slovenia are Hungary and Slovakia. Poor air transport infrastructure is mentioned as a notable competitive disadvantage of the Slovenian economy in GCR.

Traffic volumes

The actual demand for transport services is reflected in traffic volumes on given transport infrastructure. Demand for transport services depends on different factors, like the level of economic development, regional pattern of economic activity and settling, demographic and cultural characteristics etc. The capacity of the existing infrastructure and the quality of transport services also influence traffic volumes carried over by different transport modes. For Slovenia as a small country located at a crossing of different transport corridors of pan-European importance, external factors are also very important, namely economies and people of the neighbouring countries.

1. Road and rail transport

In this chapter we present data on goods (Tonne-kilometres for Slovenia are based on the research project carried out at SORS (in co-operation with EUROSTAT) for years 1998, 1999 and 2000. It is important that individual entrepreneurs were also included in the sample.) and passenger transport. In the EU member-countries road transport has a dominant position in goods transport, except in Sweden and Austria (probably due to their environment protection policy) while the use of railways is more important in Slovenia and other CEE countries. But even here the picture is changing in favour of roads.

In transport by buses and coaches (see Figure 10) Slovenia’s average per person is on the level of EU15. One finds the highest average values per person for the following countries: Denmark, Luxembourg, Greece, Slovakia, Austria, Ireland and Italy. The lowest values correspond to France, UK, Germany, Czech Republic and Poland. On the contrary, the average value of rail passenger- kilometres (pkm) per person in Slovenia is quite below the EU15 average – (as a matter of fact only the value for Greece is lower.) The highest values correspond to the following countries (known for the quality of their rail passenger transport): France, Denmark and Austria. The Netherlands, Germany and Hungary also come close to the highest values.

The most important (and still growing) part of passenger transport is related to passenger cars. The motorization level in Slovenia is high if compared with what could be expected from Slovenia’s level of economic development. A comparison with less developed EU member-countries shows a significantly higher value for Slovenia than for Greece, Ireland and Portugal. Slovenia’s level of motorization is even higher than in Denmark, Netherlands, Finland and UK, where an active transport policy is conducted that favours public means of transportation.

This attitude is partly reflected in fuel prices, presented in Figure 12. The countries mentioned are also those with the highest prices. In our selection of countries the price of the 95-octane lead-free gasoline (Eurosuper) varies between 0.68 (Slovakia) and 1.15 (UK) EURO per litre. Large differences in prices are caused by differences in taxes between countries and the price in Slovenia is relatively close to the lowest value.

2. Air and port transport

Slovenia has three international airports (Ljubljana, Maribor and Portorož) and eleven smaller airports for local needs. While Maribor and Portorož are of smaller significance (for tourist and partly business activities) with less than 100,000 passengers’ movements per year, the Ljubljana Airport is the only real international airport in Slovenia with close to 1 million passenger movements per year.

Slovenia’s coast is quite short but is nevertheless very important for its development opportunities. The seaports Izola and Piran are open for international passenger transport while Koper is the only Slovenian port capable of international goods transport. Koper has an advantageous location being the closest port to some Central-European countries. It has good background connections (railway and road) and is located on the 5th Trans-European corridor. The port of Koper has ambitious plans to become the central port and goods distribution centre for the Central-European countries. After Slovenia joins the EU a close co-operation between Trieste, Monfalcone and Koper (and later also with Rijeka (Croatia)) is expected to form a regional port system in the Northern Adriatic.

3. Transit traffic

In this section we illustrate the importance of transit traffic for Slovenia. From the data of the Road Directorate of the Republic of Slovenia (see Traffic’99, 2000), available only for the network of major roads, one can see that the share of traffic corresponding to the vehicles registered in foreign countries is approximately 13 per cent. But if one looks at the heavy lorries and trailers only then the vehicles with foreign registration account for approximately 30 per cent.

It is obvious from Figure 13 that transit goods transport is extremely important for Slovenian railways. (If the share of transit is computed from tonne-kilometres the figures are even higher (approximately 65% in years 1997-1999).) It accounts for 50 % of all goods transport in 199829. The share of transit for Slovenia is the largest among the given countries. In Austria and Switzerland, being known as countries with a large transit flow and their policy for treating it, the corresponding shares in 1998 were 19.4% and 37.6%. Other countries with a significant share of transit transport are Denmark, Luxembourg and Slovakia. (In 1997 the corresponding share was 49.3% and in 1999 48.2%.)

Investments in transport infrastructure

Slovenia, as a developing country that wants to join the more developed countries, needs a relatively high level of investment activity. This was indeed so, especially during the last 5 years when the share of gross capital formation in GDP was between 24 and 28 percent. In the period from 1996-2000, investment outlays for transport infrastructure were in the range from 3.2% to 3.9% of GDP. The corresponding share for investment outlays for roads and motorways was between 1.4% and 2.6% of GDP, while the share of investment outlays for railways was lower but was growing during the given period.

Here, we have to note that data on transport infrastructure include data on post and telecommunications also. The share of investments in post and telecommunications has been growing during the period from 1996-2000. The data for the year 2000 reveal that their share in the total outlay for transport (and communications) was 23%.

Household expenditure for transport

A comparison between Slovenia and other CEE countries (see Figure 14) reveals a much higher share of final consumption for transport in total consumption for Slovenia. In other CEE countries the share of transport costs is between 8 and 10 per cent while in Slovenia it is almost 18 per cent.

Traffic safety

Road transportation is the most risky mode of transport according to the number of fatalities. Over 40,000 people are killed and 1.7 Million people injured in the EU countries every year (see Road Safety, 2001). Slovenian figures are also very frightening, more than 300 fatalities per year. Estimates of the total cost of road accidents, including valuation of lives and losses in the quality of life, are often between 1% and 3 % of GNP in the countries concerned (for EU this figure is equal to 2 %; see Road Safety, 2001). For developed countries the road safety problem is mainly due to a high degree of motorization, while in developing countries this is a comparative lack of safety culture and features.

In Figure 15 the data on the number of road fatalities for the year 1999 are presented with the age group 15-24 year olds presented separately. For the age group of 15 to 24 year olds, the countries with the worst record are the same as for the total (Greece, Portugal, Poland, Slovenia) but there are also some of the more developed countries (Belgium, France, Austria, Germany, Luxembourg and Spain).

In Figure 16 the data for the years 1991, 1995 and 2000 are presented to shed some light on the dynamics of the phenomenon.

Sources

• Statistical Yearbooks of the Republic of Slovenia, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Sweden (for different years)
• European Union - Energy & Transport in Figures, 2001, European Commission, Directorate-General for Energy and Transport in co-operation with EUROSTAT
• Traffic 99 (in Slovene), Road Directorate of the Republic of Slovenia, Ljubljana, 2000
• Annual Bulletin of Transport Statistics for Europe and North America, UN, 2000
• OECD, http://www.oecd.org
• World Competitiveness Yearbook 2001, IMD, Lausanne
• International Road Traffic and Accident Database, OECD 2001
• International Road Union (IRU), http://www.iru.org/
• European Central Bank, http://www.ecb.int/
• UN - Economic Commission for Europe, Road Accident Data Slovenian Economic Mirror 5/2002, IMAD, Ljubljana, 2001
• Data of the Bank of Slovenia, http://www.bsi.si/
• European Environment Agency, http://www.eea.eu.int/
• Traffic congestion in Europe, Round Table 110, Paris - 1998, OECD Publications Service, 1999
• CESTAT Statistical Bulletin, 2001/1, Ljubljana, 2001
• The Global Competitiveness Report, World Economic Forum, Geneva, Switzerland, 2002
• Road Safety, European Communities, 2001

Contact Persons

Useful Links

• Ministry of Transport, Transport policy and International relations office
• Directorate of the Republic of Slovenia for Roads
• Agency of the Republic of Slovenia for railways
• Civil Aviation Authority of the Republic of Slovenia
• Slovenian Maritime Directorate
• Transport Inspectorate (currently available in Slovene only!)
• Motorway Company in the Republic of Slovenia
• Adria Airways
• Port of Koper
• Slovenian railways