LJUBLJANA (AFP) -- Increases in oil and food prices are to blame for giving Slovenia the highest inflation in the eurozone, almost double the average of other member countries, Slovenia's Finance Minister Andrej Bajuk told AFP.

Only ten months after joining the eurozone and less than a month before assuming the presidency of the European Union, Slovenia, once a model EU country, saw its 12-month inflation jump to 5.8 percent in November from 2.4 percent in November 2006.
This prompted concern from European Monetary Affairs Commissioner Joaquin Almunia, who argued that Slovenia's inflation was setting a bad example for other euro area candidates and that it was ""not clearly linked with membership in the eurozone.""
In an interview with AFP, Bajuk admitted: ""Inflation came as a surprise to us.""
Inflation in Slovenia has been fueled by oil and food prices, which increased twice as much as in other EU countries due to a lack of competition in the market and as a consequence of the euro changeover, Bajuk argued.
Rounding up prices
The effects of rounding up prices in the first two months after adoption of the euro added only 0.3 percentage points to inflation.
But the real jump came later, the 64-year-old former World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank official said.
""Everybody was concentrating on the rounding up, but nobody really had in mind to check the prices (of seasonal products) compared to October,"" Bajuk said.
""It all started in the last ten days of April, when prices of seasonal vegetables and fruits that were not in the market in January increased rapidly."" In October, they contributed 1.9 percentage points to inflation, he added.
""If you add to that the effects of oil prices, that is more than 50 percent of Slovenia's inflation,"" Bajuk argued.
He rejected criticism by some Slovenian economists and center-left opposition parties, who blame the government's fiscal policy for an overheated economy that is reflected by high economic growth and inflation.
""Household expenditures have not moved from normal fluctuations over the last decade ... Public finances have been lowered over the last three years by three percentage points"" and were expected to fall to 43.6 percent of GDP by year-end, according to Bajuk.
The government is passing a new competition law to tackle inflation and this autumn it replaced the head of the Competition Office, blaming him for allowing the country's three main supermarket chains to demand even higher prices than in neighboring countries.
""We should continue working with civil society ... educating consumers,"" Bajuk said, calling for broad public consensus similar to that reached by all political parties when Slovenia declared independence from Yugoslavia in 1991 and when it prepared to join the EU in 2004.
""I believe inflation is going to slow down, definitely,"" he said.