Commenting on the draft revised budget for 2013, a draft budget for 2014 and projections for state budgets in 2015 and 2016, outlined by the government on 14 November, Ott says in the latest IJF review that a revision of the budget has been postponed too long this year, despite warnings in the past that such practice was irresponsible and flippant.
To make things worse, a proposal for the state budget in 2014 ignores the fact that this year's budget has to be revised due to lower revenues and higher expenditures, resulting in an increase of 60% in the budget deficit.
This makes it impossible for making any comparisons between statistics in 2013 and projected statistics for the 2014-2016 period, Ott said.
She warns that although the authorities were aware that Croatia would be placed into the Excessive Deficit Procedure, under the European Union rules, they did wait for the adjustment of statistics in 2013 to methods of keeping statistics in the EU, which would otherwise help efforts to make a more realistic budget for 2014.
The Institute of Public Finance believes the government could have opted for an interim budget for the first quarter of 2014 and then compiled a better and more realistic draft budget, taking into account what Croatia would be required to do in line with the EDP procedure.