PM "has faith in economic measures"

Prime Minister Mirko Cvetkovic believes that the govt.’s adopted measures will yield the expected effects and that increasing VAT is a last resort. “The crisis is always a cause for dissatisfaction and I can’t expect applause, but I am completely calm because we are taking the best steps,” Cvetkovic told daily Blic. PM "has faith in economic measures" He said that the budget review had left none of the government ministers happy with the amount of money in their ministry budgets, but they were happy that the budget had been adopted unanimously. “I told that cabinet meeting that they could all choose because the worst thing is to have someone who does not believe in what he’s doing. I said that anyone who wasn’t ready to take decisive moves had other options in their lives as well. Thankfully, no resignations were offered, everyone raised their hands and voted for the review,” Cvetkovic said. He said that the number of public administration employees would be cut by ten percent in the next nine months, and that the systematic process of downsizing the workforce could begin after an analysis was conducted of how many people were actually needed. The prime minister said that he believed that the EU would authorize visa liberalization for Serbian citizens in June and that visas would be abolished by the end of the year. Speaking of the construction of the South Stream gas pipeline, Cvetkovic said that it was “not problematic,” and that the dispute between Bulgaria and Russia would “end positively.” Mirko Cvetkovic (FoNet, archive)

PM "has faith in economic measures"

He said that the budget review had left none of the government ministers happy with the amount of money in their ministry budgets, but they were happy that the budget had been adopted unanimously.

“I told that cabinet meeting that they could all choose because the worst thing is to have someone who does not believe in what he’s doing. I said that anyone who wasn’t ready to take decisive moves had other options in their lives as well. Thankfully, no resignations were offered, everyone raised their hands and voted for the review,” Cvetković said.

He said that the number of public administration employees would be cut by ten percent in the next nine months, and that the systematic process of downsizing the workforce could begin after an analysis was conducted of how many people were actually needed.

The prime minister said that he believed that the EU would authorize visa liberalization for Serbian citizens in June and that visas would be abolished by the end of the year.

Speaking of the construction of the South Stream gas pipeline, Cvetković said that it was “not problematic,” and that the dispute between Bulgaria and Russia would “end positively.”