By Marja Novak

LJUBLJANA, July 1 (Reuters) - Slovenia is still awaiting approval from the European Commission for its bank rescue plan to commence, the country's bad bank spokeswoman said on Monday, as the country struggles to avert an international bailout.

The euro zone member had planned to make the first transfer by the end of June and the delay puts it a step closer to a possible bailout as its mostly state-owned banks are nursing some 7 billion euros ($9 billion)of bad loans which equals 20 percent of GDP and is crippling the recession-hit economy.

"A pilot case for the first transfer still has to be determined and until then we cannot speak of the date or the value of the transfer," said Simona Rodez, spokeswoman for Slovenia's newly-established 'bad bank', The Company for Management of Bank Claims (DUBT).

Rodez told Reuters the transfer would have to meet "relatively strict" criteria set by the European Commission, but gave no details.

The government plans to transfer 3.3 billion euros of the bad debt to the DUBT in exchange for state-guaranteed bonds with a joint value of 1.1 billion euros.

Prime Minister Alenka Bratusek last month urged the European Commission to approve the transfers as soon as possible, anxious to stop Slovenia becoming the latest member of Europe's troubled singly currency bloc to seek a bailout.

Bratusek says the first transfer will amount to only around 100 million euros in bad loans.

There was no immediate comment on the delay from the European Commission which in May told Slovenia to perform external bank stress tests so as to clearly determine the scope of the problems of its banking sector.

"It is likely that the European Commission will wait for external stress tests of the Slovenian banks to be completed before approving the main transfers which could delay the process until the autumn," said Andraz Grahek, a managing partner of consultancy Capital Genetics.

"I believe Slovenia can still avoid a bailout but only if it overhauls the banking sector by the end of this year at the latest," he added.

The finance ministry said in mid-June Delloite will perform a part of the banks' external audit but gave no details on when the audit could be completed.

Hit by falling export demand, rising bad loans and growing unemployment, speculation is rife that the country of 2 million people will need to secure a financial lifeline from its EU partners and the International Monetary Fund.

Slovenia bought some time in May when it managed to issue two bonds of a total value of $3.5 billion. Its 5-year 1.5 billion euro bond expires in April 2014.

"While we see no immediate catalyst likely to lead Slovenia to request some form of financial assistance for its banks, we believe that it will ultimately become the sixth euro area member state to become a recipient of funding, albeit limited to the banking system, at some point in the second half of 2014," Jaromir Sindel, an economist at City Research, said last week.

The yield demanded on the country's 10-year benchmark bond stood at 6.71 percent on Monday, down by 0.06 percentage points from Friday, Reuters data showed. ($1 = 0.7693 euros) (Editing by Matt Robinson, Ron Askew)