Green Budget Reform

Slovenian practice and European best practice

Date: see doodle at http://doodle.com/qv9qrsaw328uhzcd Place: Okoljski center
Where does Slovenia stand when it comes to green taxes and other green elements of the budget? While the general situation for the budget is as clear as critical, the evaluation of the green budget is more complicated. On the one hand, Slovenia gives large subsidies to environmentally harmful energy production and consumption especially in industry and agriculture and supports road transport in various ways. On the other hand, Slovenia has introduced already 15 years ago a CO2 tax and ranks third when it comes to environmental taxes as a share of GDP. This workshop will help to shed light on Slovenias real progress in greening the budget (we plan to give special attention to Environmentally Harmful Subsidies and social aspects of the green budget reform). The workshop offers the opportunity to exchange information and find out which priority should be given to green budget issues within the Plan B network.

Preliminary Agenda
Intro Green Budget Reform Slovenia (50%) After an expert conference in September 2012 Umanotera kept on working on the issue of a comprehensive green budget reform for Slovenia. We will present key findings of that work. This will include the first register of environmentally harmful subsidies in Slovenia. There will be plenty of time for clarification and discussion. Green Budget Reform and social aspects (25%) Again we will start with a brief introduction and then work together on the social challenges (e.g. energy poverty) and opportunities (e.g. employment) that are connected to green budget reforms. Plan B & Green Budget Reform (25%) In this part of the workshop we will debate how relevant green budget issues are for the Plan B members and for the network as a whole? Which data and information are needed in the different fields? What are the opportunities for reforms and what should the lobbying of Plan B (organizations) focus on?