BRATISLAVA, October 7, (WEBNOVINY) — Funding of budget priorities of individual ministries has been agreed upon after Friday’s meeting of leaders of the ruling coalition parties. According to SaS deputy chairman and Defense Minister Lubomir Galko, who headed the talks on behalf of his party, the spending on priorities will not increase the deficit and will be covered from additional sources, which the coalition leaders found during talks in the past weeks.
„What is important is that we have not increased the deficit, that we have very responsibly and proportionately handled the resources that we found, and distributed them between those priorities that ministries requested,” Galko told journalists on Friday. The general government deficit in 2012 is projected at 3.8 percent of gross domestic product (GDP).
Galko went on to say that he cannot express unreserved satisfaction with results of the talks for the SaS party itself. He added that an “honest tie” has been reached, which they can live with. „The battle for the budget with the finance ministry cannot be won, but an honest tie can be achieved and I think I can say that it is an honest tie. I am speaking not only for the defense department, but also for other ministries that the SaS heads,” the party’s deputy leader and defense ministry said.
SDKU-DS leader and Foreign Affairs Mikulas Dzurinda and Finance Minister Ivan Miklos for the same party, MOST-HID Chairman Bela Bugar and KDH leader Jan Figel participated in Friday’s coalition talks, too. Representatives of the SDKU-DS party, however, left the negotiations without a comment. Ivan Miklos is to provide details on the budget agreements later Friday. Bela Bugar did not comment on the outcomes, either, while representatives of his party were among the biggest critics of the budget draft.
Finance Minister Ivan Miklos stated already after Thursday’s talks that the coalition agreed on increasing the volume allocated for flood prevention, the health department, education, and for uncovered problems in the Ministries of Environment, Interior and Defense. Moreover, the coalition partners agreed to set aside an approximately EUR 50 million reserve for the case that the economic situation develops worse than the latest Finance Ministry’s macroeconomic prediction says. These priorities should be funded also from an increase in the bank levy. The bank levy was originally proposed at 0.2 percent of selected assets, which would bring EUR 41 million to the state coffers. Miklos said that the bank levy will be increased by a maximum of twofold.
SITA