Slovenian Prime Minister Marjan Sarec is in talks to secure support for its 2019 budget and planned pension reform but without it, his coalition government is at risk of falling, according to Reuters.

The government plans on introducing a pension reform in 2019 which aims to remove bureaucracy for potential foreign and domestic investors, the centre-left PM said in an interview with the news agency.

The planned reform involves a gradual increase of the retirement age, which currently stands at 60 in Slovenia, but Sarec did not give further details on his plans.

According to Reuters, Sarec’s government, which holds 43 out of 90 parliamentary seats, adopted a draft 2019 budget last week expecting a budget surplus of 0.5 per cent of GDP and a spending increase of 4.8 per cent to €10.2bn compared to an earlier budget plan made by the previous government.

“We can do nothing without the budget. If there is no budget there will be a (parliamentary) election,” Sarec said in the interview.

The PM also said that while not pessimistic about Slovenia’s economic outlook, he was worried that Brexit and trade disputes could affect some of its main trading partners which are mostly other EU states.

The vote for the proposed budget will be held in March.

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