Until yesterday, MPs submitted 119 amendments to the proposal for the budget. Their total fiscal effect amounts to €170 million. In case the amendments are adopted, the budget deficit would range from 9 to 10%, which is absurd, the Finance Minister, Aleksandar Damjanovic, assessed yesterday.
He pointed out that the net fiscal effect of all amendments amounted to €141,513,000, but that the additional effect on the budget reserve is 30 million.
“We planned a 5.9% budget deficit, which is the upper limit that may withstand domestic and international scrutiny in terms of sustainability and financing the deficit with foreign partners. EUR 170 million of new obligations for the budget is an additional three percent, so the deficit would go up to eight to nine percent, and you know well it’s absurd,” Minister Damjanovic told at yesterday’s session of the parliamentary Economy Board.
The biggest part of amendments refers to the capital budget, so the Minister emphasized that the only way to adopt it was to linearly reduce the existing one by 20%.
Yesterday, the Minister refused the SNP’s amendment asking the increase in the budget of the Employment Agency by €45 million so that the unemployed might get a 100€ allowance on a monthly basis.
“We’ll think about one-off support for those people based on the financial situation,” the Minister said.
The Board is going to declare on the remaining amendments today, after which follows the session of the Parliament and adoption of the next year’s budget.
