I am tabling the motion for a second defence because I got the same answer as always that the status quo is fine,
I propose that water be made free for households because in our town and elsewhere in Slovenia our parents, grandparents and grandmothers dug their own trenches for pipes and bought the water meter, and now we have to pay the meter fee and various pointless contributions to the state and the municipality, which is always inventing new taxes. Now the water companies are charging wholesale for maintenance etc., the whole water network system is in a deteriorating state and they are not even renewing it, they are just milking our money for themselves, and they are living nicely at our expense, just look at the cars they have in their offices and the way they have arranged their offices.
Please do not make excuses for existing laws again, as you do with all the other proposals on this site, so I really do not know why you even want our proposals if you do not take them into account, are they not proposals for changing existing laws for the better for all of us?
Response from the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment
In accordance with the Local Self-Government Act (Official Gazette of the Republic of Slovenia, No. 94/07, 76/08, 79/09, 51/2010), the municipality regulates matters within its competence by means of ordinances, decrees, regulations and instructions.  The municipality independently carries out local matters of public importance (original tasks), which it determines by a general act of the municipality or which are laid down by law.
In accordance with the applicable legislation governing the manner in which utilities are to be provided (Act on Utilities, Official Gazette of the Republic of Slovenia, No 32/1993, 30/1998 - ZZLPPO and 127/2006 - ZJZP), the manner in which each mandatory municipal utility is to be provided must be legally prescribed in municipal ordinances. According to the Law on Public Utilities, the local community is obliged to provide compulsory municipal environmental utilities in the form of overhead establishments, public utilities, public undertakings or by granting concessions in the prescribed manner.
Article 149 of the Environmental Protection Act (ZVO-1, Official Gazette of the Republic of Slovenia, No 39/06 - UPB1, 49/06 - ZMetD, 66/06 - US Decree No 66/06, 33/07 - ZPNačrt, 57/08 - ZFO - 1A, 70/08, 108/09, 48/12 and 57/12) stipulates that the supply of drinking water is a compulsory municipal public utility service. It also stipulates that the facilities and installations necessary for the provision of the public service are infrastructure of local importance.
The Regulation on the methodology for pricing services of compulsory municipal utilities for environmental protection (Official Gazette of the RS, No 87/2012, 109/2012; hereinafter referred to as the Regulation) was prepared on the basis of Article 149(3) of the Environmental Protection Act and establishes the methodology for pricing services of compulsory municipal utilities for environmental protection, including drinking water supply.
The price for the provision of the services of each utility is composed of three parts, namely the part representing the price of public infrastructure, the part representing the price for the provision of the services of each utility and the part representing environmental charges, if any. For the provision of the public service, the municipality shall charge the operators a rent for all public infrastructure necessary for the provision of the public service and owned or leased by the municipality, at least equal to the depreciation charged for all public infrastructure necessary for the provision of the public service.  Depreciation costs shall be calculated on the basis of the time depreciation method, according to the utilisation rate of the public service infrastructure and taking into account its useful life. Only that part of the rent charged by the municipality to operators for the use of the public infrastructure may be passed on to the users of the utility services, which shall be proportional to the share of the capacity of the public infrastructure allocated to the users of the utility services. The water charge is that part of the price which covers the costs of providing the public service (the variable part of the price). Only costs which can be related to the provision of the public service and which include the following groups may be included in the water charge:
The price of each public service for the territory of the municipality shall be proposed by the operator in a pricing study for the provision of the public service (hereinafter referred to as 'the study') and approved by the competent municipal authority. The proposed price shall be referred to as the 'indicative price'. The municipality shall consider the pricing study and determine the approved price for each public service, plus any subsidy, and the operator shall establish and publish a price list containing the approved price, less any subsidy, on its website and in the usual local manner. The certified price, reduced by any subsidy, shall be the price charged and paid by the user. The price charged shall be shown uniformly to users on their bills in accordance with Annex 2. The price of a particular public service shall not differ between users or groups of users where the users of a particular public service in a particular municipality have the same provider. If a municipality sets an approved price which does not allow the full rent to be paid, it must create a subsidy for the difference from its budget.
In the light of the above, we consider that the current regulatory framework is appropriate.