Former Slovak Central Bank Director fears failure to draw EU funds among main budget risks

Slovakia's state budget for 2015 meets the country's fundamental commitments towards the EU on achieving a balanced structural budget by 2017, Budgetary Responsibility Council Chairman Ivan Šramko said on Thursday. According to Šramko, it's geopolitical developments and possible failures in drawing EU funds that can represent the most significant risks for the 2015 budget. "The inability to draw EU funds properly appears to be the biggest problem of the Slovak economy this year. We don't have any evidence that the approach has changed. It has negative effects on public finances and we lose the economic potential that could have been built with the use of these resources," said Šramko. The budgetary deficit for 2015 should reach 2.29 percent of GDP. The original draft of the Finance Ministry was a bit more austere, but the budget has been upped in Parliament mainly due to the introduction of health deduction allowances for people with low salaries.