The purpose of the government-sponsored amendments is to reallocate funds in some ministries in order to increase funds for the Council for Ethnic Minorities by two million kuna, ensure an additional million kuna for the construction of new university campuses and an additional two million for some projects of the Health Ministry which are to be intensified in 2007.
The government also intends to provide 1.5 million kuna to build a monument to the war victims from the Vukovar Hospital.
Persons with the highest degree of disability will not have to pay road tolls, and this cost will be covered with budgetary funds amounting to 20 million kuna.
This amount will be secured by cutting by the same amount expenses for the issuing of securities by the Finance Ministry.
The government will also intervene in the draft budget to enable local self-government units to seek additional loans in 2007. The government has proposed that municipalities, towns and counties be allowed to seek loans amounting to up to 2.3 percent of the overall revenue of local self-government units, instead of up to 2 percent as was the case until now.
Finance Minister Ivan Suker said this intervention was made at the request of local self-government units.
The government will reject all 317 amendments submitted by parliamentary deputies, which amount to 6.58 billion kuna, Suker said, adding that the amendments were used for political promotion.
The government today also adopted a draft Pre-Accession Economic Program (PEP) for the period 2007-2009, which will be sent to the European Commission on Friday and which states all structural reforms that are being conducted or are yet to be conducted as part of preparations for EU membership.
PM Sanader said among other things that the PEP would cover a medium-term economic strategy for EU membership, which is a plan for the implementation of structural reforms in the area of economic and fiscal policy.
The PEP for the period 2007-2009 is the third one to be sent to the EC and the first to be sent after the conclusion of the stand-by arrangement with the IMF, Suker said.
The PEP also shows the fiscal effects of the reforms and macroeconomic forecasts until 2009. The PEP projects a five percent economic growth to be achieved by 2009, an inflation rate of 2.8 percent, a drop in the unemployment rate, an increase in foreign investments and a further slowing down of foreign debt growth.
PM Sanader said that by the end of the year the government would send the parliament a bill on privatisation to cover an employee stock ownership plan. In that context, Sanader proposed that a representative of trade unions be elected to the Management Board of the Croatian Privatisation Fund.
The government also appoinetd a special commission in charge of combating the grey economy, to be headed by Andrija Mikulic of the State Inspectorate.