The Slovak government is determined to continue lowering the general government deficit. After this year’s narrowing the gap to the planned 2.9 percent of GDP, the deficit should continue decreasing to 2.6 percent in 2014, 2 percent in 2015 and 1.3 percent of GDP in 2016. “Achieving these goals will halt the growth of the share of the public debt on GDP and enable its gradual reduction as of 2015,” says the Finance Ministry in the draft Stability Program of the Slovak Republic for 2013 – 2016.
Along with the national program of reforms, it will be sent to Brussels to be assessed by the European Commission. The draft stability program is currently undergoing interdepartmental review. The Finance Ministry said that to achieve the set goals will require further consolidation measures that will amount to 1 percent of GDP in 2014, 1.6 percent a year later and 1.8 percent of GDP in 2016. Nevertheless, a portion of measures is already included in the draft outlook of the general government budget for 2014-2016, says the ministry. “Other measures will be specified in the course of preparations of the draft budget,” reads the material. The included measures represent in particular savings of wage costs in the public administration, savings on subsidies and higher non-tax revenues mainly one-offs. Programs of stability and convergence are the requirement of the Stability and Growth Pact and are submitted on an annual basis to the European Commission and the EU Council. They are aimed at presenting the development of the fiscal position, the estimated development of the economy, and a description of measures of budgetary and economic policy for achieving the set goals over the medium-term.
Gavin Shoebridge
