Fiscal policy

By Mark Gilbert

BELGRADE, - The 0.5 percent drop of economic activities for the year to come as envisaged in the 2015 budget has been realistically evaluated, but the forecast concerning a 1.5 percent increase for 2016 and the 2 percent growth for 2017 can hardly be achieved and is overly optimistic, the Fiscal Council stated on Tuesday.

BELGRADE - Serbian Finance Minister Dusan Vujovic said Monday that the proposal for the 2015 budget was the first budget to predict savings at all points and was changing the trend of budget revenues, which was beginning to grow, opening the way for Serbia to get out of crisis.

BELGRADE - President of the Fiscal Council Pavle Petrovic said Monday that the Serbian government's proposal for the 2015 budget envisaged reducing the number of employees in the public sector by about five percent or about 27,000 employees.

 Problems in cash flow and in meeting revenue targets will inevitably lead to additional austerity measures

By Dimitris Kontogiannis

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The Cypriot Parliament has adopted a government budget that envisions an increase in spending of only 0.6 percent.

The budget forecasts state revenue of 5.928 billion euros compared with 5.952 billion euros in 2014, with spending of 6.660 billion euros.

The House of Representatives approved the tight spending plan late Tuesday by a vote of 29-26.

The Romanian parliament on Friday is to debate the 2015 budget, which is targeting a deficit of 1.83 per cent of gross domestic product, GDP.

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Romania's aggregate consolidated budget for the coming year is built on a 2.5 pct economic growth, with the gross domestic product estimated at 709.681 million lei; the budget deficit is set at 13.004 million lei or 1.8 pct of GDP, according to the macroeconomic indicators of the budget construction published by the Public Finance Ministry.

Prime Minister Victor Ponta on Tuesday said that there is an agreement in principle with the delegations of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the European Commission (EC) and the World Bank (WB), according to which the budget deficit targeted for next year will account for 1.83 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

The revenues and expenses of the general consolidated budget go up some 1.32 billion lei in the balance and the general consolidated budget deficit will be kept as nominal value at 14.713 billion and as share in the gross domestic product (GDP), at 2.2 per cent, according to the emergency ordinance draft setting the legal framework for the third budget revision for 2014.