Serbia Rejects All 166 Amendments to Budget Rebalance

The parliamentary Committee on Finance, the Republic Budget and Control of Public Spending rejected every one of the 166 amendments lawmakers had filed against the proposed changes to the 2026 Budget Law. The vote came down on August 26, the third day of an extraordinary session of the National Assembly, called at the request of 109 lawmakers, after legislators earlier that day wrapped up a joint general debate on all 59 items on the agenda and moved into a detailed debate on the first item, the rebalance.

Assembly speaker Ana Brnabic called a one hour break during the day, after which debate on the amendments resumed after 3 p.m. Srpske vesti reported the day before on a sharp exchange between Brnabic and the opposition during the general debate on the same proposal. Today the dispute moved from procedure to specific budget line items, with a direct clash between the finance minister and a lawmaker from the People’s Movement of Serbia playing out on the floor.

How Much the Budget Is Growing

The rebalance, adopted by the government on August 20, raises revenue by 112.45 billion dinars, to a total of 2,527.15 billion dinars, a rise of about 4.7 percent. Spending, meanwhile, climbs by 171.45 billion dinars, to 2,923 billion dinars, a jump of 6.23 percent, a bigger percentage increase than on the revenue side. Finance Minister Sinisa Mali said the rebalance raises the share of the budget going to capital investment to seven percent of the total, or 780 billion dinars.

What the Opposition Wanted With Its Amendments

Most opposition amendments concerned redirecting money set aside for construction of the National Stadium. Radomir Lazovic of the Green Left Front filed an amendment seeking to redirect those funds toward student welfare, fire and flood protection services, and energy efficiency.

“Instead of into a corrupt project like ‘Belgrade Waterfront,’ budget revenue should be redirected to what citizens actually need,”

Lazovic said during the parliamentary debate on the amendments. His party colleague Robert Kozma pushed to raise funding for disaster protection and firefighting vehicles from 400 million to 1.4 billion dinars.

Lawmakers from Srbija Centar sought money for a different set of needs. Slobodan Petrovic filed an amendment for funds for the water supply network in Bujanovac, built between 1971 and 1975, whose pipes are mostly asbestos. Verica Milanovic asked that the one billion euros planned for the National Stadium be redirected to social welfare facilities instead, citing figures showing three nursing homes burned down last year.

“Nursing homes are falling apart, three of them burned down last year,” Milanovic said.

Ivana Rokvic, a lawmaker with the People’s Movement of Serbia, proposed in her amendment that 300 million dinars be carved out of the 35 billion dinars earmarked for Expo 2027 preparations to build a health center in New Belgrade. Opposition lawmakers also demanded payment of pensions left unpaid from 2014 to 2018, and called for ten percent of the state budget to be set aside for agricultural producers.

The Clash Between Mali and Aleksic

The debate turned sharpest when Miroslav Aleksic, a lawmaker with the People’s Movement of Serbia, asked Minister Mali how he could have projected 79 billion dinars in dividend revenue from state owned companies. Mali replied that Aleksic had wrongly quoted the figure in euros, and said that of that sum, 34 billion dinars came from a payment by the National Bank of Serbia, and 20 billion dinars from a dividend paid by the Chinese company Zijin.

“You haven’t even read that budget. If you’d gotten slightly better grades in school…”

Mali said, hitting back at Aleksic on the floor. Later, discussing the level of agricultural pensions, the minister turned to the same lawmaker again, saying:

“You should be ashamed!”

Mali added that agricultural pensions used to stand at 9,768 dinars and now stand at 24,000 dinars.

With that, the Finance Committee closed the amendment procedure on the first item of the agenda. Debate on the remaining 58 items, which include changes to the laws on Belgrade Waterfront and on the Judicial Academy, continues in the days ahead.