Government approves the revised draft 2024 State budgetary plan
Today, the Government approved the revised draft 2024 State budgetary plan prepared by the Ministry of Finance. As noted by Minister of Finance Gintarė Skaistė, after the first hearing at the Seimas, the draft plan returned has not changed significantly – several improvements have been made to keep focus on the most pressing today’s issues.
“We will submit to the Seimas the revised draft 2024 State budgetary plan reinforcing our initial plan. Without straying from the key budget priorities – education, increasing personal income, strengthening security – and responding to national realities, we allocate additional funds to education, culture, increasing personal income, strengthening security, improving infrastructure. We also incorporate additional Drawing Right for financing national defence, enabling borrowing for the development of dual-purpose infrastructure necessary for potential needs in the event of commitments to host allies, said Minister of Finance G. Skaistė. — Having a fair assessment of the options available and our strong unchanged commitments – to grow and to strengthen Lithuania and to ensure the growth of welfare of the people, the supplemented draft 2024 State budgetary plan is submitted to the Seimas”.
The revised draft budgetary plan has been prepared considering the proposals from the Seimas committees, commissions, members, public authorities and bodies received for more than EUR 1.3 billion, as well as the legal acts already adopted by the Seimas or at the final stage of adoption.
Latest draft amendments
The revised draft 2024 State budgetary plan approved by the Government allocates additional EUR 157 million to Lithuanian roads, EUR 40 million of which is earmarked for the Road Maintenance and Development Programme, and specifically for the reconstruction works of the Vilnius-Utena highway. In parallel, EUR 117 million is allocated to Lithuanian roads from the EU financial support. In total, EUR 872 million is planned for improvement of road infrastructure in 2024.
An additional EUR 8.6 million in the revised draft State budgetary plan will be allocated to increase personal income. EUR 4.7 million of which is allocated to ensure consistency of wage increases, e.g. to increase wages of case managers of the social security system, social workers and individual care workers from 5 % to 10 %. Also, EUR 2 million is allocated to implement legislative amendments – e.g. for wages of prosecutors, etc. Finally, almost EUR 2 million is allocated to other wage increases related to the proposals of the Seimas committees, e.g. to increase wages of the employees of the Migration Department and the Drug, Tobacco and Alcohol Control Department.
An additional EUR 31.4 million is allocated to the Ministry of National Defence, as it will be received from the European Peace Facility in the upcoming year as compensation to Lithuania for its active support to Ukraine.
At the same time, in response to persisting geopolitical uncertainty, a change in the Drawing Right is proposed. The Government approves the proposal to establish a provision that for the needs of the national defence of the Republic of Lithuania and for the development or adaptation of the dual-purpose (military-civil) transport and other infrastructure necessary to ensure the support of the host country, the Drawing Right shall be granted. This decision may be implemented by maintaining the general government balance indicator and the Government borrowing limit specified in the budget law.
An additional EUR 3.5 million in the revised draft budgetary plan is foreseen for education, of which the largest share – EUR 3 million – is earmarked for non-formal education of children, and another half a million euro – for modernisation of the infrastructure of educational institutions in South-East Lithuania.
The revised draft also earmarks an additional EUR 4.2 million to the cultural sector. EUR 1.1 million of which is planned for the Programme for the Year of M. K. Čiurlionis, Song Festival and the Lithuanian season event cycle in France. In addition, EUR 1 million is allocated to state film funding, additional EUR 1.5 million – to the Media Support Fund, EUR 250 thousand – to the Lithuanian National Drama Theatre – to co-finance the purchase of a remote solar power plant and EUR 360 thousand – to update the fire protection system of the M. Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania.
Finally, EUR 13.8 million in the revised draft 2024 State budgetary plan is allocated to other needs, e.g. EUR 10.4 million for the implementation of legal acts and their amendments, EUR 4.6 million of which will be earmarked for social services to municipalities, as well as transport concessions for children, replacement of the information system for bailiffs, etc.
Balance dynamics
The updated draft State budgetary plan prepared by the Ministry of Finance foresees that the general government deficit in 2024 is slightly increasing, as compared to the initial draft 2024 State budgetary plan and will reach – 3 % of gross domestic product (GDP), of which -2.5 % after deduction of temporary measures (support for Ukraine), the general government debt will be 39.9 % of GDP. Accordingly, in the initial draft plan, the general government deficit was -2.9 % and the general government debt – 39.8 %.
You can find out more about the initial draft budgetary plan here.
For the presentation of the revised State budgetary plan click here.
Last updated: 27-02-2024
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