The chairman of Slovakia’s budgetary council Ivan Šramko says that tax revenues are likely to fall next year while certain expenses will increase. He was speaking about the thinking that went into the government’s budget for the public sphere for the next three years. A budget deficit of 0.68 percent of GDP is predicted for 2019, but the government is targeting a figure of 0.49 percent for 2020. The budget council disagrees with Slovakia’s finance ministry, in part because of differing expectations on the level of dividends the state is likely to earn from companies it owns. Slovakia’s prime minister Peter Pellegrini called the budget proposal a compromise between current economic conditions and the need to maintain the health of public finances. He said the state shouldn’t cut its social benefits but instead takes measures to make the running of the public sector more efficient. “Slovakia has to be a social state where there’s the security that if a person finds himself in a critical situation, the state will provide assistance.”
