On Tuesday, the European Commission (EC) presented its assessments of the medium-term plans of member states and their reflection in the draft budgets for 2025. A comparison of the submitted plans of 22 countries shows that Slovakia will undergo the most ambitious consolidation in the EU in the next four years. This was pointed out by the Institute of Financial Policy (IFP) of the Ministry of Finance (MF) of the Slovak Republic.
"This results from the currently high public finance deficit and the growing costs of the aging population, but also from the government's interest in stabilizing the debt by the end of the election period," the institute explained. The plans and their assessment are part of the new European fiscal rules, which are being applied for the first time this year.
According to the medium-term plan, the Slovak public finance deficit will fall significantly below 3% of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2028. Although public debt will increase slightly above 60% of GDP in the short term, its development will subsequently stabilize, gradually decrease and remain below 60% of GDP in the next 10 years without further government intervention. "Based on this, the EC states in its assessment that the medium-term plan of the Slovak Republic meets the requirements of the new EU fiscal rules and recommends that the EU Council approve it," the IFP underlined.
The medium-term plan is now also followed by the excessive deficit procedure (EDP), in which Slovakia is currently included due to the high public finance deficit exceeding 3% of GDP. The procedure will mean the formal submission of regular semi-annual reports on measures taken to reduce the deficit. The first of these will have to be sent to the EC by the end of April 2025, the institute announced.
Source: TASR
