The government's communication office said the program is expected to be confirmed next week and then submitted to the European Union.

Minister of Health Riina Sikkut (SDE) said more work needs to be done.

"Today in government, we listened to the Fiscal Council's (FC) assessment of both the Ministry of Finance's spring forecast and the stability program based on it, and we took note of this information. No decisions were taken on the stability program. We will discuss it in the coalition council on Monday and, if necessary, we will then hold an extraordinary meeting," she told ERR.

"On the one hand, the environment has changed, and the spring forecast shows that tax receipts are worse than planned under the RES (state budget strategy), and so this 1.9 percent deficit target has increased to 2.6 percent," she said.

Sikkut said the stability program lacks a specific list of budget improvement measures agreed in the RES or how the deficit will be reduced in 2025.

"So, if we have agreed that there will be €430 million additional revenue in the budget from tax increases, what are these tax increases and from which year do they apply? Likewise, as for savings or other agreements in the RES, what specifically was the Fiscal Council hoping to see and it is not there at the moment?" the minister said.

She said more discussions should be held and Võrklaev could better outline the proposal. This would bring peace of mind to SDE that this path should be followed.

The FC estimates that €1 billion will need to be made in savings if the government is going to meet its deficit reduction target. But Sikkut does not think this is possible.

The council said the Ministry's spring economic forecast was suitable for preparing a stability program.

According to the State Budget Act, the government must approve the stability program no later than eight months before the start of the next fiscal year, and it must be submitted to the European Commission. The European Commission and the Council of the EU evaluate the programs submitted by the member states in May-June.

In the stability program, there is a plan to present next year's budget deficit as 3 percent of GDP, which is the limit set by the Stability and Growth Pact.

In reality, the Ministry of Finance is using data from its spring economic forecast, where it hopes to reduce an otherwise projected deficit of 5.3 percent with measures that have not been adopted and from which many politicians have already backed away.

In addition to tax increases that are already in process and approved, the Ministry of Finance has created a table of possible new measures that could reduce the budget deficit – currently estimated at €2.22 billion without counting investments – to a more manageable one billion euros.

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