Parliament voted in favour of the state budget for 2011 on December 8, with the deficit set to drop from this year's €4.54 billion to €3.81 billion in 2011, the TASR newswire reported. Overall state revenues are proposed at €13.15 billion with expenditures to reach €16.96 billion in 2011.
The bill was backed by 78 of the 147 MPs present, with 69 voting against it. The vote was attended by Prime Minister Iveta Radičová and all cabinet members. In line with expectations, it was supported by ruling coalition MPs while all opposition legislators, who saw all seven of their proposed amendments rejected, voted against the final bill.
The legislation underwent small coalition-proposed changes that cut the originally planned deficit from €3.83 billion to €3.81 billion. This was largely due to the inclusion of tax revenues stemming from the sale of surplus emission quotas, with the amount of the extra revenue estimated at €96 million.
Funds earmarked for the Transport, Posts and Telecommunications Ministry, which is headed by Ján Figeľ (KDH), will be cut by €8.21 million. This is because of parliament's recent rejection of a proposal to raise the excise tax on beer that failed because four KDH MPs abstained from the vote. It was then announced by the government minister that a ministry under KDH's remit will have to make up for the missing revenues due to the failure to increase the excise tax on beer.
The Labour, Social Affairs and the Family Ministry also saw its allocated funds cut by €1.7 million. The President's Office and the Parliament's Office will receive an extra €300,000 and €2.3 million in 2011, respectively.
Source: TASR
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
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