The Lithuanian parliament decided to hold its final vote on the government’s 2023 budget on November 22 after debating the revised draft plan on November 17.
The motion to set the date for the final vote passed in a vote of 66 to 14 with 33 abstentions.
Mykolas Majauskas, chairman of the parliamentary Committee on Budget and Finance, noted that the final budget vote would be held earlier than usual.
“Usually, we adopt the budget in December,” he told the parliament.
Finance Minister Gintare Skaiste said the main budget priorities remained unchanged.
“They remain linked to the current situation: geopolitical tensions, Russia’s manipulation of the energy market and the resulting increase in energy prices, and general inflation related both to energy prices and other sectors to which price increases have already spilled over,” the minister told the parliament.
“Investments are also being made in energy transformation,” she said.
Skaiste said that the government had rejected most of MPs requests for additional spending, worth around 1.3 billion euros in total.
The 2023 budget deficit target remains unchanged at 4.9%, according to the minister.
The government has revised its estimate of budget expenditure for subsidising households’ natural gas and electricity bills down to 98 million euros, but forecasts that municipalities will need around 16 million euros more than earlier planned to cover part of heating bills for eligible households.
According to Skaiste, the central government will lose an estimated 24 million euros in annual budget revenue due to the reduced VAT rate for hotels, while extended exemptions for restaurants and other catering businesses will cost almost 60 million euros.
The revised budget bill allows raising defence spending to 3% of GDP through borrowed funds, provided that the overall budget deficit stays within the 4.9% range.
The original draft budget set defence spending target at 2.52% of GDP. Based on the current GDP forecast, the increase of 0.48 points amounts to 337.3 million euros.
The government also plans to strengthen the military mobility package, with an additional 24.8 million euros to be allocated for the Rudninkai training area and other infrastructure measures and 5 million euros for intelligence capabilities.
In the original bill, the budget expenditure was projected to increase by 6.1%, to 18.61 billion euros next year. The estimate was revised to 18.629 billion euros.
The central government’s budget revenue is projected to grow by 3.4% next year compared to this year, to 15.604 billion euros, including EU funds. The revenue target was revised down by 20.4 million euros compared to the original estimate. (LRT/Business World Magazine)