Slovenian Government Skirts Collapse With Budget Vote Win

(Bloomberg) -- Slovenia’s ruling coalition ended a political crises that threatened to tear it apart, winning parliamentary approval for its two-year budget draft and avoiding a potential snap election..Prime Minister Marjan Sarec’s minority government has teetered on the point of collapse since a leftist party revoked its support this month. His five-party coalition spent the days leading up to the budget vote squabbling over the size of pension hikes and the amount of cash to be allocated to municipalities..They stepped back from the brink and committed to continue working together, pushing through the budget in a 49-41 vote early on Friday. They also got support from the nationalist SNS party, which had pushed for its own projects in the spending plan..The difficulties for the government aren’t over, though. With the coalition three votes short of a parliamentary majority, it will have to depend on opposition lawmakers to boost its numbers for every new law it proposes..That may come to a test soon as Sarec said on Twitter he expects the parliament’s upper house to veto a law on the budget’s implementation, a key measure for it to come into effect. Still, he hopes his coalition will be able to find enough votes overturn it..Finance Minister Andrej Bertoncelj said this week that the 2020 and 2021 budgets maintain a high level of social security, but also have a development component. He highlighted a surplus that will allow for a significant reduction in debt. The euro-area nation, which stabilized its public finances in 2017 after a 3.2 billion-euro ($3.6 billion) bailout of its banking industry, is aiming for a budget surplus of 0.8% of output next year..To contact the reporter on this story: Jan Bratanic in Ljubljana at jbratanic@bloomberg.net.To contact the editors responsible for this story: Irina Vilcu at isavu@bloomberg.net, Andrea Dudik, Balazs Penz.©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

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Slovenian Government Skirts Collapse With Budget Vote Win

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