Archive of articles - November 2014, page 9

Parliamentary Financial Committee to go back to budget draft next week

Parliament’s Financial Committee will discuss the budget draft for 2015 again next week, after a session on November 18 was cut short on the initiative of Finance Minister Peter Kažimír. “There’s one more session ahead of us,” Kažimír said, according to the TASR newswire. “It concerns collective bargaining about a possible rise in the salaries of public administration employees and teachers, which is due to take place tomorrow.” According to the state budget draft approved by the government in mid-October, Slovakia’s public finance deficit should represent 1.98 percent of GDP in 2015, with the prospect of gradually reducing it to 1.43 percent of GDP in 2016 and to 1.43 percent of GDP in 2017. The Slovak economy’s GDP is projected to grow by 2.6 percent next year, while the total state debt should remain under 55 percent of GDP. “The foundations for the figures on which the budget rests are stable in terms of what’s going on in the economy in Slovakia and beyond,” Kažimír said. “The figures are realistic, and we stand by them.” Opposition MPs took potshots at the minister at the November 18 session. “The tax revenues of public administration and the revenues of social and health care insurance are going up on an annual basis, which is a positive thing,” independent MP Jozef Kollár said. “What’s less positive, though, is that the rising figures mean that the government is taking from all while giving only to some.”