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Southeast Europe
March 16, 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 15
an "unacceptable one-sided campaign”, STA reported on March 14.
The supreme court judges echoed the position of the Constitutional Court, which said that
the government should not have spent budget funds on the campaign. It found the government referendum campaign unacceptable because it "emphasised merely positive consequences of the implementation of the law and the negative ones resulting from the law's rejection, but not also potential risks of implementation”.
According to the Supreme Court, the Koper-Divaca law, which remains in limbo, should be endorsed in a referendum beyond any doubt about irregulari- ties, so a re-vote must be taken, STA reported.
“This was the straw that broke the camel's back;
Ominous report from Capital Economics sounds alarm on overheating Turkish economy
Will Conroy in Prague
The sheer pace of growth in Turkey looks increas- ingly like a cause for concern and there is mount- ing evidence that the economy is overheating, Capital Economics warned on March 14.
There are clear signs that demand is outstripping the productive capacity of the economy and will ul- timately lead to a slowdown which could cause GDP growth for Turkey to come in at just 3% this year, the consultancy said. That puts Capital Economics at the bottom of the consensus range. On March 13, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and
the second track project has been hit by another blow, taken by those who want to stop Slovenia's positive development. I don't want to be part of such stories," Cerar said, STA reported.
He also told a news conference that his coalition partners had been trying for a long time to undermine projects, without naming specific parties or programmes, Reuters reported.
The government coalition, which took power in September 2014, includes Cerar’s Party of Modern Centre, the Social Democrats and pensioners’ party Desus.
A repeat vote on the Koper-Divaca law is expected within two months, STA quoted jurist Jurij Toplak, who helped draw up the appeal challenging the referendum at the Supreme Court.
Economic over-stimulation may have driven up import demand causing Turkey's worryingly large current account deficit to start widening again (pictured is Istiklal Avenue in Istanbul).
Development (OECD) raised its forecast for Turk- ish GDP in 2018 by 0.4pp, upgrading the forecast to 5.3%. However, on March 8 Moody’s Investors Service cut Turkey further into junk, saying that the Turkish government – which has injected huge stimulus into the economy since the downturn that followed the July 2016 attempted coup – seems focused on short-term measures, undermining effective monetary policy and economic reform.
“Turkstat has yet to release Q4 GDP data but, on the basis of our GDP Tracker, we think growth in