Little contact between the powers running the finances of Croatia.
“I am surprised that Prime Minister-Designate Tihomir Tim Orešković has not called me. I am at the Ministry every day, but so far neither Orešković nor anyone else from the coalition that will form the new government has not sent any signal they would like to meet me”, said the outgoing Finance Minister Boris Lalovac, stating that he was surprised since the budget is the most important and the first question that the new government must deal with, and there is not enough time as it is, reports Jutarnji List on January 3, 2016.
“Even us, who already have all the necessary information, would have a hard time preparing the new budget and the convergence program for the European Commission on time. The convergence programme should have been submitted no later than December, but the European Commission tolerated the delay because we had elections”, Lalovac said and added that this year’s budget will be particularly challenging for several reasons.
First is that the budget will have to be supported by legislative package. The European Commission expects that new laws will be adopted which will prove that the planned budget will actually be implemented, and that there will not be any changes to the budget during the year. For example, it is not sufficient just to plan savings in the civil service; a new Law on Civil Servants must be adopted. It is the same with all the other areas with planned budget savings. Another big problem is that the new government will have to give its opinion within the budget about various models for refinancing loans, from the Croatian Highways public company to many others. The third major problem are the unions, due to the activation of the agreement, which was signed by former Prime Minister Ivo Sanader, that the wages will increase by 6 percent for some 240,000 public, state and local civil servants if GDP grows more than two percent for two quarters in a row, which did happen late last year.
In addition to the budget for this year, the government must also submit a plan for the next three years. Lalovac indicated that the European Commission will not evaluate just the budget itself, but will also consider various political factors, which means that it will also take into account the balance of forces within the coalition, as well as the people who will be given certain posts within the government.
