Govt Agrees on Cuts to Balance 2015 Budget
Cerar told the press that all the members of the coalition and ministers made significant sacrifices to start building "the positive story that Slovenia needs".
This way economic growth and employment will be made possible as well as a number of development projects. The activities of the government and individual ministries in this area will be presented in the coming days and weeks, the prime minister announced.
The government also adopted today the starting points for a new social agreement and for talks with public sector trade unions that will begin tomorrow.
He expressed "a kind of expectation or even a call" to social partners who are cooperating with the government in the search for solutions to also try to constructively contribute "to a better tomorrow", even if this means giving up on certain things for the common good.
While the press conference of the government is still under way, the budget planning documents that Slovenia has submitted to the European Commission already showed the public sector will bear the brunt of the fiscal consolidation effort as the government scrambles to bring the budget deficit below the 3% of GDP ceiling demanded by the EU.
A fiscal effort equal to 0.94% of GDP is projected in this field for 2015, almost double the planned public sector savings for this year.
Additional savings are planned on social transfers (0.59% of GDP) and investments (0.53% of GDP), while cuts in other segments are much smaller.
The planning documents assume that the general government deficit will be at 2.8% of GDP next year, below the 3% ceiling but still marginally higher than planned in the existing budget documents.