The Croatian parliament on Wednesday adopted the €20.9 billion 2021 budget which projects government deficit to shrink by 60 percent from €3.9 billion kuna in 2020 to just €1.5 billion in 2021, based on projected GDP growth of 5 percent in 2021, 3.4 percent in 2022, and 3.1 percent in 2023.

Seventy-six MPs voted in favour, all from the ruling HDZ-led coalition, while 49 MPs voted against.

The 2021 budget projects revenues totalling 147.3 billion kuna (€19.5 billion) and spending of 157.9 billion kuna (€20.9 billion). The government projects GDP to increase by 5 percent in 2021, 3.4 percent in 2022, and 3.1 percent in 2023.

After this year’s 29.5 billion kuna budget deficit (€3.9 billion, or 8 percent of GDP), the general government deficit in 2021 is projected at 11.5 billion kuna (€1.5 billion, or 2.9 percent of GDP), which would be a 60 percent year-on-year reduction.

The government is projecting the deficit to shrink further to 2.1 percent of GDP in 2022 and to 1.6 percent of GDP in 2023.

Of the 331 amendments submitted to the draft budget, the government endorsed five and parliament adopted them. These include an additional 450,000 kuna (€60,000) for prveention of youth violence, 500,000 kuna (€66,000) in funding for domestic violence shelters, 10 million kuna (€1.3 million) for the reconstruction of the police department building in the coastal town of Porec, 1.5 million (€200,000) to ‘help persecuted Christians’, and 2 million kuna (€264,000) for the Zabok-Krapina-Slovenian border railway.

The opposition boycotted the preceding vote on proposed amendments because almost all of their proposals had been rejected by the government, and because no majority MPs were present when the proposals were debated in the assembly.

However, in an exciting twist of events, they returned to the assembly to vote against the budget.

(€1 = 7.56 kuna)