Today, the government gave its final approval to the draft budget for 2011 and to the public administration budget for the upcoming three years. It will present the draft to parliament by the official deadline of 15 October, although it lacks the support of social partners and the opposition.
The budget projects with revenues of EUR 13.1 billion in 2011 and expenditures of EUR 16.9 billion, meaning a deficit of EUR 3.8 billion.
The government is hoping that its austerity measures will cut the public finance deficit from 7.81% of GDP this year to 4.9% in 2011, 3.8% in 2012, before getting under the EU-prescribed 3% threshold in 2013 with 2.9%.
The Ministry of Finance, which compiled the budget, admits that the draft budget is not waterproof because of the influences of the global economy, an unstable deficit level this year and its dependence on how well the various government austerity measures will work in practice.