ZAGREB, December 2, 2018 – The Croatian Parliament will reconvene on Monday to vote on 2019 budget and several laws. including the new foster care law which caused disagreements between the Croatian Democratic Union and the Croatian People’s Party.
Presenting the 2019 draft budget, Finance Minister Zdravko Marić said last week revenues totalled 136.1 billion kuna, including 51.8 billion kuna from VAT. Expenditures are planned at 140.3 billion kuna, 6.9 billion kuna more than in this year’s budget. In said increase, 2.8 billion kuna refers to financing from general sources, while the remaining 4.1 billion kuna refers to European funds, he said.
On Friday, the government adopted three of a total of 217 amendments to the draft 2019 budget and four amendments referring to extra-budgetary users and submitted two of its own amendments.
Finance Minister Zdravko Marić said at the session that of the total of 217 amendments, the government adopted three amendments referring to the state budget and four amendments referring to extra-budgetary users – the Hrvatske Ceste road operator.
Adopted were amendments submitted by MPs Marija Pug Šipić and Žarko Tušek, worth 10 million kuna and two amendments submitted by MPs Pero Ćosić, Ljubica Maksimčuk and Marko Šimić, worth 15.5 million kuna.
Furthermore, the government adopted amendments to a draft financial plan for Hrvatske Ceste for 2019, submitted by MPs Vesna Bedeković, Josipa Đakić, Vladimir Bilek, Željko Lacković, under which additional 37 million kuna would be secured in 2019 for building and upgrading fast roads.
The government submitted two of its own amendments. The first one refers to the development of assisted areas, namely parts of Croatian territory that are behind in development in comparison to the Croatian average and therefore need additional development support.
The second one proposed a redistribution of 4.1 million kuna to the Education Ministry for the purpose of securing funds for the Hrvatsko Zagorje-Krapina Polytechnic.
For more on Croatia’s budget, click here.
