Budget on the government table – after the elections: the opposition is on the rise, but history shows that not necessarily deservedly | Deal

Spokesperson for the Prime Minister Tomas Beržinskas 15 minutes confirmed that the state budget project for 2021 will be presented next week.

This means that the data from the state treasury will be made public after the first round of the Seimas elections, which will take place on Sunday.

The Government alleges that it does not link the dates of the budget presentation and the elections to the Seimas.

“The date of presentation of the budget is not related to the elections, but to the procedure and deadlines established by law for the preparation of the budget.” 15 minutes T.Beržinskas said.

You may have to engage in a nasty debate about what costs to reduce or what taxes to increase.

Next year’s draft budget is getting a lot of attention every year, but this year it’s causing an even bigger stir.

In the 2021 budget bill, we will see the impact of the coronavirus crisis on public finances, economists say.

“The key issue to consider when examining next year’s draft budget will be the projected budget deficit.” 15 minutes said Sigismund Mauricas, chief economist at Luminor Bank.

“If the projected deficit is planned to be significant enough, it will raise legitimate questions about the sustainability of public finances. Then it may be necessary to engage in an unpleasant discussion about what costs to reduce or what taxes to increase,” he added.

Ramūnas Karbauskis, the leader of the ruling “peasants”, has previously said that the budget for 2021 will have a surplus, meaning the state will spend less money than it will receive.

Finance Minister Vilius Šapoka has previously stated that the draft budget will be safe, because he carefully evaluates expenditures, as a larger part than usual will have to be financed by loans.

Do we know what future we are voting for?

Part of the opposition complains that the state budget is presented after the first round of the Seimas elections.

According to her, the government is clever in not revealing the real situation in the country before the elections and is preventing opposition parties from planning their economic policies.

Conservative leader Gabriel Landsberg said in early September that budget makers would present the last minute so people would not know what to expect when they went to the polls.

“In other words, both you and we will see the budget before the second round. People will not know which future they are voting for when they vote,” confirmed the politician in Seimas.

The leader of the Liberal Movement, Viktorija Čmilytė-Nielsen, said that the inability to see the financial performance of the country next year prevents parties from sharing measured promises before the elections.

“Without knowing the real situation, without being able to get information about the real situation in our budget, it is very difficult to plan the earthworks based on numbers.” 15 minutes affirmed the parliamentarian.

According to her, the Government could have rushed to the budget project also due to the uncertainty caused by the COVID-19 blow to public finances: “This year the situation is especially sensitive: public debt is growing, the situation in the world and in Lithuania it remains uncertain. “

I don’t want to participate in cheap populism.

A political tradition?

However, history shows that criticism of this particular government for putting forward a budget is not necessarily well deserved.

The Skvernel government also prepared draft state budgets for 2017-2019 and they were made public on October 11-16.

The Algirdas Butkevičius government, which had previously worked on the 2016 elections, announced the project on October 12, three days after the first round of the Seimas elections.

Their previous budgets were presented by the government to the Seimas from September 30 to October 2, although their drafts were made public a few days before.

With A.Butkevičius 15 minutes We were unable to contact each other, but we did with the Social Democrat Rasa Budbergytė, who was Minister of Finance in the 2016 pre-election.

Although the politician now works in the opposition of the Seimas, he refuses to criticize the decisions of the current government on the presentation of the budget.

According to the MP, the preparation of the budget is a complicated process and the date of its publication can certainly be advanced or delayed, depending on circumstances other than the elections.

“Those who tell you that the budget must be presented before the elections are simply sending messages of agitation.” 15 minutes stated R.Budbergyt declaró.

I’m afraid that next year’s budget may be a big surprise for us.

“I don’t want to get involved in cheap populism,” he added.

The government of Andrius Kubilius, who worked in 2012-2016, presented the latest budget on October 16. The first round of the Seimas elections took place two days before.

Ingrida Šimonytė, the current leader of the conservative list who was working for the finance minister at the time, says she recalls that the previous government also presented the budgets for the election year after the vote in the first round.

However, the state of public finances is becoming extremely difficult to predict because the government did not review the 2020 budget when the COVID-19 pandemic occurred, says the politician.

“That’s why I’m afraid next year’s budget could be a big surprise for us, because we don’t know how it’s changing.” 15 minutes I. Šimonytė said.

“The downside is that it is not entirely clear what we are going to budget for next year. “It is not bad in itself that this government is dragging next year’s budget until the last minute, as most other governments have done so far,” he added.

The idea of ​​postponing the parliamentary elections to the spring has been repeatedly discussed in the Seimas of this legislature. The authors of the idea argued that this would allow the new governments to draft a state budget immediately, since the new ruling majority currently does not have much time to change the budget prepared by the “outgoing” politicians in the fall.

However, the idea was not implemented. The Constitution now provides for periodic elections to the Seimas in October.