The amendments consider the comments of the Legislative and Legal Service (ZPS) of the National Assembly concerning nomotechnical corrections, explanations of certain articles of the draft Act and corrections to articles. The ZPS examined the draft Act from the point of view of its compliance with the Constitution of the Republic of Slovenia, the legal system and from the legislative-technical point of view.

The amendments to the articles amending the chapter on data collection in the food supply chain have defined more generally the purpose of collecting data on prices, quantities and origin of agricultural and food products. The analysis of the data collected will allow support to be granted to agricultural sectors. It has also been specified in more detail that the data are to be entered into the information system of the Agency of the Republic of Slovenia for Agricultural Markets and Rural Development by the persons responsible for the provision of the data. The definition of trader has been redefined, adding that the persons liable for providing data are also medium-sized enterprises and that all terms are used exclusively for the purposes of this Chapter.  The title of the chapter has also been amended to reflect the new Article 170a, which now reads: 6. Market information system, information system for monitoring data in the food supply chain and agricultural accountancy. There is also a change in the offence provisions, in which the twenty-first indent of the Paragraph 1 of the amended Article 176 has been amended to bring it into line with the content of the other amendments.

The amendments to the article on the conservation and development of agriculture have revised the procedure for selecting the organisation and approving the multiannual action programmes to be put out to tender, specified more precisely who prepares the multiannual and annual action programmes and defines the role of the committee in evaluating the annual action programmes in the light of the Ministry's guidelines and the multiannual action programmes. Some terms were unified and nomotechnical corrections were made in the Article to improve the clarity and coherence of the text of the Act. In the explanatory memorandum, the Legislative and Legal Service explained in more detail the derogation from the Act Regulating Relations between the Republic of Slovenia and Slovenians Abroad and why a special regulation is being introduced in the Agriculture Act. It was also explained that, due to the different legal forms of status in different countries, it is not possible to define more precisely in the Agriculture Act terms such as "agricultural, development and educational organisations of Slovenians abroad" and "Slovenian community associations". It was further explained that the amount of the funds allocated, the more detailed definition of the conditions for granting financial support, the criteria for determining the amount of the funds and the deadline for submitting applications for financial support would be laid down in more detail in a regulation or a call for tenders, and that the procedures for granting financial support, the content of the decision and the contract of mutual relations, and the grounds for withdrawal of entitlement to the funds allocated will be defined in the applicable regulations.

In the opinion of the ZPS, the assessment of the proposed solutions is also hampered by the sometimes deficient, formal explanation of the individual articles. Therefore, the additional explanatory memorandum, in some cases, clarifies the content and purpose of the individual provisions and the implications and interrelationships of the solutions contained therein.

Source: Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Food