Unions and employers are sitting down today to hash out the details of the new budget process. The Finance Ministry has called everyone back for another meeting on Friday.
Yesterday, parliament unanimously voted to pull the draft budget—a move that came after Monday's massive protests. The government proposed hitting pause on the whole thing, and then brought unions and business leaders to the Finance Ministry for talks. Turns out most of what business has been asking for is getting addressed.
The big news: that planned 2-percentage-point hike in pension contributions? Scrapped. And the ceiling on social security income probably won't jump as much as originally planned, either. Making those changes will cost the budget close to 1.5 billion euros, which they'll cover by cutting capital spending. If everyone can agree on the tweaks, the revised budget should be ready by Monday.
The government's hoping to get the whole thing passed before the month's out.
Yesterday, parliament unanimously voted to pull the draft budget—a move that came after Monday's massive protests. The government proposed hitting pause on the whole thing, and then brought unions and business leaders to the Finance Ministry for talks. Turns out most of what business has been asking for is getting addressed.
The big news: that planned 2-percentage-point hike in pension contributions? Scrapped. And the ceiling on social security income probably won't jump as much as originally planned, either. Making those changes will cost the budget close to 1.5 billion euros, which they'll cover by cutting capital spending. If everyone can agree on the tweaks, the revised budget should be ready by Monday.
The government's hoping to get the whole thing passed before the month's out.
