Financially troubled Slovenia will not require an international bailout following a court decision that it need not hold popular votes on key reforms, its finance minister told a newspaper. Slovenia's constitutional court last week rejected demands for referenda on two reform laws filed by the opposition and a trade union in October, and public sector unions dropped calls for a referendum on an austerity budget for 2013-14.

"We are very confident. We have constructed a budget that more than meets the European Union deficit principles," Janez Sustersic told Austria's Der Standard in an interview released on Thursday ahead of publication on Friday. "There are no short-term risks of a magnitude that would necessitate a rescue package. The most important thing is that the constitutional court changed its opinion." Slovenia's finances have come under pressure from bad loans at its banks, most of them state-owned, but it managed to issue its first sovereign bond in 19 months in October, averting a bailout for at least six months. Popular protests against austerity and alleged government corruption started in November but have since lost steam.

Copyright Reuters, 2012