Until October 12, when Parliament is meant to dissolve due to elections on December 11, 14 working days will remain, a time when all legal deadlines need to be observed surrounding the adoption of the new budget for the year of 2017, which amounts to 3.3 million euros.
The Government submitted the draft-budget for 2017 on September 20, and according to the Law on Budgets, after the draft-budget is submitted to Parliament, it’s then pout to a plenary session which lasts 20 working days.
From September 20, since the proposal entered parliamentary procedure, until October 12, which is the latest day to vote, because of the dissolution of Parliament, remains 16 days. This will be hard to maintain regarding the legal deadline which is a minimum of 20 working days according to the Parliament Rules and Regulations.
Within 5-10 days of the proposal entering the parliamentary procedure , it will be handed to the Commission of Finance and Budgets, who will take approximately 10 days to review the draft-budget.
After the Commission hearing, the draft-budget is returned to the Government, with a report. If there is need for changes or alterations, a 3 day deadline is given for any amendments.
According to the Rules and Regulations from Parliament, the budget will be then reviewed at a plenary session, which could take up to 5 days.
So, if all deadlines are met, the current parliamentary line-up will not be able to adopt the budget in time, however, there is always a possibility that the Government and the ruling majority will find a way to speed up the process.
In term of legal requirements, the Minister of Finance, Kiril Minoski stated that the job of the Ministry of Finance is to submit the draft-proposal to the Government, after that, the whole procedure is left to Parliament.
The opposition party, the SDSM has not yet announced a strategy in regards to the new budget, apart from a statement where they said if the budget does pass, and they were forming the Government, they would revise the strategic financial document.
