Act governing the rescue and restructuring aid for companies and cooperatives in difficulty

Zakon o pomoči za reševanje in prestrukturiranje gospodarskih družb in zadrug v težavah

Country	Slovenia , applies nationwide
Time period	Open ended, started on 18 February 2017
Context	Restructuring Support Instruments
Type	Legislations or other statutory regulations
Category	Supporting businesses to stay afloat – Rescue procedures in case of insolvency or adaptation of insolvency regulation
Author	Maja Breznik (University of Ljubljana) and Eurofound
Measure added	11 July 2022 (updated 07 November 2024)

Background information

This instrument is available to companies and cooperatives that are unable to access funding to curtail negative trends in their business performance, and which would, without intervention, jeopardise the existence of the company or cooperative.

Companies eligible are those which play a systemic role in the development of a country, region or sector. Rescue aid is granted with a view to ensuring their long-term viability on the market and for a limited period during the preparation of the firm's restructuring programme. It supports and assists the implementation of the restructuring programme. Rescue and restructuring aid is exceptional when major economic crises or difficulties arise in individual firms.

Content of measure

A company or cooperative in difficulty that wishes to get state aid must prepare a restructuring strategy. The strategy must include a programme to address the needs of employees facing redundancy and retraining programme for employees, provided by the employer. The provided state aid can take different forms: a loan, a subsidy, an interest rate subsidy, a guarantee, a financial investment or a deferral of taxes or contribution payments.

The programme for rescuing and restructuring of companies and cooperatives in difficulty is implemented by the Ministry of Economic Development and Technology, Department for Entrepreneurship, Competitiveness and Technology. Its main task is to decide on allocating state aids to companies and cooperatives in difficulty.

Use of measure

The latest published Ministry of Finance report for 2020-2022 shows a significant fall in rescue and restructuring aid. The state approved no grant in 2022 and 2021, and a small grant in 2020 for Turnaplast. The latest higher grant was paid off in 2018 (€0.56 million) for two companies, Arosa Mobilia and Semenarna Ljubljana. All beneficiaries gained soft loans.

Over the last ten years, 23 firms in difficulty received rescue and restructuring aid. The total amount was €202.39 million, of which the three largest recipients – Cimos (€131.9 million), Adria Airways (€50 million) and Mariborska livarna Maribor (€10.2 million) – obtained €192.1 million, or 92% of the total aid (Ministry for Finance, Twenty-third Annual Report on State Aids for Years 2020, 2021 and 2022, pp. 46-47).

Target groups

Workers	Businesses	Citizens
Does not apply to workers		Does not apply to citizens

Actors and funding

Actors	Funding
National government	National funds

Social partners

Social partners' role in designing the measure and form of involvement:

	Trade unions	Employers' organisations
Role	Unknown	Unknown
Form	Not applicable	Not applicable

Social partners' role in the implementation, monitoring and assessment phase:

Unknown
Main level of involvement: N/A

Involvement

Unknown

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