"If it happens, and we speak about political responsibility, that a minister has violated provisions of the fiscal responsibility law, they will have to tender their resignation to the Prime Minister," PM Jadranka Kosor said at today's session.
The new legislation, which is to go into effect on 1 January 2011, applies to users of budget and extra-budget funds and to heads of local self-government units.
According to the draft, the total expenditure of the general budget (the government's budget plus budgets of local self-government units and financial plans for extra-budgetary users) is to be reduced annually by one percentage point of the projected Gross Domestic Product.
The new legislation also defines fiscal rules for the implementation of the government's fiscal policy, with PM Kosor saying that the goal is to reduce the deficit in order to ensure that spending was financed only by revenues and new borrowing made only to cover previous liabilities or for development.
Kosor and Finance Minister Ivan Suker said that this proposal was in accordance with the government's Economic Recovery Programme and expressed conviction that the new law would facilitate efforts to increase the country's economic competitiveness and decrease the deficit and the public debt.