Parliament in Night Session as Opposition Protests State Budget
Parliament is continuing an overnight session - something of an annual tradition in recent years when MPs review the state budget bill.
Lawmakers have voted down 63 amendments out of a total of 403. The Social Democratic Party has been using 10-minute breaks after each vote as a delay tactic, in protest of low child benefits, reported ETV.
A new session was declared open at 10:00 this morning. Today's session is also expected to be an overnight one.
The bulk of the proposals hailed from the opposition - 305 from the Social Democrats and 90 from the Center Party. But if last year is any indicator, the majority of those will amount to wasted paper, as the coalition parties then refused to accept any of the 100 proposals.
The Cabinet sent the budget bill to Parliament in late September. Expenditure will grow 4.9 percent, to 8.06 billion euros, with allocations by area of governance increasing more or less across the board. Revenues will grow 4.3 percent, reaching 8 billion euros. The government has planned for a nominal deficit of 0.4 percent and at the same time a structural surplus - leaving out cyclical, one-off and temporary factors - of 0.7 percent.