BRATISLAVA, September 23, (WEBNOVINY) — Opposition SMER-SD deputy Peter Kazimir says that the agreement of the ruling coalition parties outlining next year’s budget is the only good news regarding the budget. SMER-SD lawmaker Kazimir does not criticize the government’s effort to consolidate public finances but methods it intends to apply. “The Cabinet decided to impose higher taxes and payroll taxes on citizens, chiefly on low and middle-income groups,” he said at Thursday’s news conference.
Kazimir believes that the best way to consolidate public finances would be bolstering economic growth and employment. He underscores that the structure of proposed consolidation package does answer these two principles. The former state secretary at the Ministry of Finance also pointed out at the press conference that planned next year’s expenditures from the state budget would be almost EUR 200 million higher than originally planned expenditures for this year. Mr. Kazimir said that the consolidation would thus be accomplished by imposition of higher taxes and payroll taxes, not thanks to austerity measures. He said that the former government wanted to consolidate public finances by cutting current and capital expenditures. The former government wanted to obtain additional sources for the state budget mainly from people with higher income and temporarily from the second pension pillar.
The state budget deficit should reach EUR 3.836 billion next year, according to the basic state budget parameters agreed upon by the leaders of governing coalition parties. Revenues are estimated at EUR 13.1 billion and expenditures including sources from EU funds and money for co-financing of projects are budgeted at EUR 16.936 billion, informed the Finance Ministry. Alongside austerity measures to cut expenditures, the new Cabinet also drafted measures to increase revenues of the state budget that should raise additional EUR 770 million.
The aim of these measures is consolidation of public finances to push down deficit to 4.9 percent of GDP from this year’s 7.8 percent of GDP next near. The deficit should subsequently be slashed down to the Maastricht level of 3 percent in 2013.
SITA