Fial’s government will start discussing the budget for next year. It is calculated ax 235 billion

2023-06-14 06:54:00

The draft state budget for next year will be discussed by the government today. According to the proposal, which also includes the effects of the public finance consolidation package, the state should manage a deficit of 235 billion crowns. The government also has on its agenda adjustments to state support for pension savings, a second so-called anti-bureaucratic package or an amendment to the Medicines Act, which is supposed to impose an obligation on manufacturers to keep stocks of medicines or to report their stocks to distributors.

According to the proposal, next year budget revenues should amount to 1.899 trillion crowns, expenses 2.134 trillion crowns.

The Ministry of Finance materially reduced the expenses of most budget chapters, the Ministry of Defense can count on a significant increase in the budget.

The approved deficit for this year is 295 billion crowns, but the opposition and many economists expect a deeper deficit. At the end of May, the budget deficit was 271.4 billion crowns.

According to the Ministry of Health, the amendment to the Medicines Act should come into effect in the fall. There are around 9,500 registered medicines in the Czech Republic, and in some groups, up to 60 percent of them had outages in the last two years. The proposed amendment is intended to help prevent the shortage of medicines. Manufacturers criticize it because it will increase their costs.

The Ministry of Labor is proposing changes in the Czech Social Security Administration (ČSSZ), separate district branches should be transformed into regular workplaces and would fall under five new territorial administrations. There is also an amendment on the government’s agenda, according to which traders with defaulted loans would have to obtain a new license for this business from the Czech National Bank (ČNB).

The second anti-bureaucratic package envisages the digitization of communication between employers and the social administration, by canceling entrance medical examinations for non-risky professions or by increasing the limits for mandatory verification of financial statements by auditors in companies.