BRATISLAVA, August 15, (WEBNOVINY) – Next year, the state’s expenditures should total EUR 16.917 billion on revenues of EUR 13.6 billion. This stems from the Finance Ministry’s draft general government budget for 2013 disclosed on Wednesday. Thus, the state budget gap should reach 3.317 billion.
The primary goal of the government within consolidation of public funds is squeezing the budget gap to 2.9 percent of GDP in 2013. The target deficit for 2014 is 2.4 percent of GDP and 1.9 percent of GDP the following year. The precondition for fulfilling the defined goals is maintaining the set general government deficit for 2012 within 4.6 percent of GDP. Based on available information on positive and negative developments of the budget, without additional measures, the deficit in 2012 would reach 5.3 percent of GDP. Fulfilling the budget goal this year requires additional measures worth nearly 500 million euros.
The Finance Ministry states in its material that the draft budget for next year is based on the latest macroeconomic and tax revenue prognoses and includes legislative drafts that have already been passed by Parliament or Cabinet. It also counts on increased revenues from gambling in line with a draft that has undergone interdepartmental review. The budget draft, however, does not cover any priorities of individual budgetary chapters that are being discussed. In line with the draft, next year’s deficit should reach 3.7 percent of GDP. In 2014, the gap is projected at 3.2 percent and in 2015 at 2.7 percent.
In order to squeeze the budget gap to 2.9 percent of GDP in 2013, the Cabinet of Robert Fico will have to adopt additional measures worth nearly EUR 630 million, EUR 647 million in 2014 and EUR 665.1 million in 2015. As the Finance Ministry’s State Secretary Peter Pelegrini said, the Finance Ministry will have to propose the measures worth the missing EUR 630 million in the coming weeks. „We are halfway done. We have exactly two months in line with the law to submit by October 15 to Parliament a draft budget approved by Cabinet with a deficit of 2.9 percent of the gross domestic product,“ Pelegrini said.
SITA