2023-11-17 18:47:30
Government draft goes to the plenary session without any changes
Vienna (PK) – The Budget Committee of the National Council gave the green light to the 2024 budget this evening. After a total of six days of deliberations, the coalition majority of MPs approved the draft budget presented by the government and the new federal financial framework. Only the budgets of the Court of Auditors, the Ombudsman, the Constitutional Court and the Administrative Court received unanimous support. In addition to the ÖVP and the Greens, the SPÖ and NEOS also voted for the budget for the presidential office. No changes were made to the government draft; it went to the plenary session with the original key data.
Three days of plenary deliberations are now planned before the final votes. They will start next Tuesday and last until Thursday November 23rd.
Government expects deficit of €20.9 billion next year
Specifically, the draft budget presented by the government (2178 d.B.) forecasts revenues of €102.63 billion and expenses of €123.49 billion for 2024. In total, this results in an administrative deficit of around €20.9 billion or 4.13% of GDP. Calculated according to the Maastricht criteria, a loss of 3% or – if states, municipalities and social security systems are taken into account – 2.7% is expected. The prerequisite for this is that the economy grows by 1.2%, as forecast. The general government debt ratio is expected to remain stable at 76.4% of GDP in 2024 despite rising interest payments and is expected to decline to 76.1% by 2027 according to the federal financial framework.
The parliamentary budget service attributes the fact that the budget deficit – unlike planned last year – is not falling more sharply to, among other things, the expansionary new financial equalization, whereby the additional money for the states is to flow into the areas of health, care, housing and childcare, among other things . The government has also budgeted more money for other budget items such as national defense, climate protection, science and research and internal security. In addition, the somewhat less favorable economic conditions and rising pension expenses are making themselves felt.
According to the government, the abolition of cold progression, which was decided in 2022, will burden the state budget with €2.8 billion next year – for the benefit of taxpayers. Energy aid for companies and non-profit organizations and other measures to make the business location more attractive are expected to cost €2.3 billion. The number of permanent positions is also expected to increase – by 1,159 to 145,149 – with the largest increases occurring in the areas of education, justice, internal affairs and financial administration.
The opposition is dissatisfied with the budget policy. The SPÖ sees it as a “very, very dangerous development” that both the budget deficit and the debt will remain at a high level in the next few years, as Kai Jan Krainer noted at the end of the committee deliberations. The FPÖ and NEOS are also critical of the high deficit. In your opinion, the draft budget is also unambitious and not very future-oriented. At the budget hearing, the experts emphasized the need to create financial scope for future crises and to initiate structural reforms.
1,363 written budget requests
As part of the budget discussions this year, the MPs once again made intensive use of the opportunity to submit short written budget inquiries to the responsible members of the government. A total of 1,363 such detailed requests were received for individual budget items. In principle, they must be answered within four working days.
For the head of the parliamentary budget service, Helmut Berger, it was the last appearance in the budget committee. He took the opportunity to thank the MPs for their good cooperation. It was “a nice task” to set up the budget service and lead it for 11.5 years, he said. He also had words of praise for the cooperation with the Ministry of Finance. Berger will retire at the end of November, and the new head of the parliamentary budget service will be Kristina Fuchs, who is currently interim head of the budget section in the Ministry of Finance.
Budget-accompanying laws
The budget accompanying law and other budget-relevant bills passed the budget committee last week. In total, the governing parties want to amend 30 laws and pass nine new ones, with measures ranging from financing 100 additional medical insurance offices to reducing unemployment insurance contributions by 0.1 percentage points to a significant increase in funding for climate protection measures such as replacing oil and gas heating systems are sufficient. The annual limit for payroll tax liability is to rise to €13,981, and 18 hours of overtime – instead of ten – are to be temporarily given tax relief.
Billions of euros are expected to be incurred in the budget for railway expansion and the promotion of chip production. Other projects concern the temporary sales tax exemption for small photovoltaic systems, the complete rehabilitation and compensation of people who were prosecuted or convicted in the Second Republic for consensual same-sex sexual contacts, interference with the pension rights of OeNB employees and former AUA employees, and the redesign the Gusen concentration camp memorial (see, among other things, parliamentary correspondence Nr. 1175/2023 and 1177/2023).
Before the votes, the budget committee discussed the finance chapter of the budget. (Continuation of the Budget Committee) gs
NOTES: The Parliamentary Budget Service offers economic analyzes of budget policy and templates from the Federal Ministry of Finance.
This provides details on the 2024 budget, the changes to previous years and the development of ongoing budget implementation interactive visualization tool of the budget service. There you will receive a quick and transparent overview of relevant budget data.
Questions & Contact:
Press service of the Parliamentary Directorate
Parliamentary correspondence
Tel. +43 1 40110/2272
press service@parlament.gv.at
www.facebook.com/OeParl
www.twitter.com/oeparl
1700247551
#Budget #Committee #green #light #Budget