Shock austerity programme in Slovenia

Slovenia's public sector unions announced on Friday that they will strike against the austerity plans of conservative Prime Minister Janez Janša, who wants to cut public sector expenditure by 1.8 billion euros. By constantly conjuring up fears of financial collapse Janša is trying to divide the unions, writes Vlado Miheljak in the left-liberal daily Dnevnik: "Janša's shock strategy and his principle of taking from the poor to give to the rich is facilitated above all by the media's subservient manner and inability to react, as well as the behaviour of the unions and the opposition parties on the left. Janša's neo-liberal doctrine can only succeed with such reforms if the unions and the leftist opposition fail to rally against them. I hope I'm wrong, but I can't shake the feeling that faced with the state of emergency in the public sector the unions are somehow remaining cold and are too willing to 'cooperate'. ... If the government is able to split the unions it will have won its most difficult battle."

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