Macedonia Concludes Budget Discussion

With only a few more legislative discussions on the agenda, Macedonia’s Parliament will likely pass the 2010 draft-budget on Thursday.

As the centre-right coalition of Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski holds a majority in parliament, the draft budget is expected to pass without major problems.

Revenue for the next year is foreseen at 2.34 billion euros and expenditures at 2.51 billion. The 170 million euro deficit is projected at 2.5 per cent of the GDP.

Increases in revenue and expenditures amount to 3.4 and 2.8 per cent respectively. The Government projects a 2 per cent GDP growth, along with a 2 per cent annual inflation rate.

Faced with the impact of the world financial crisis, which cut Macedonia’s economic growth from almost 6 per cent to minus 1 per cent, the government has pledged to tighten employment discipline in the public sector and freeze salaries in the public sector next year.

Elaborating on the draft put before MPs, Finance Minister Zoran Stavreski said Tuesday that it was “realistic, development-oriented, one that would enable the Macedonian economy to recover and grow”.

The opposition slammed the draft budget, arguing that it did not offer solutions for the three most important problems: poverty, unemployment (climbing towards a staggering 34 per cent), and corruption.

Opposition parties condemned the government for dedicating too much money to non-productive projects such as building monuments, sports stadiums and museums instead of investing in the economy.

“With this kind of budget, we risk protests and mass social unrests,” Tome Cingoveki, legislator from the main opposition party, said. Cingoveki argues that a half million Macedonian residents, or one quarter of the overall population, lives below the poverty line.