The Ministry of Finance should urgently publish data on public debt and deficit in accordance with European rules, said the executive director of the Society of Statisticians and Demographers of Montenegro (DSD), Gordana Radojević.
"March of this year marks exactly ten years since the Government adopted the Strategy for the Implementation of European Statistical Rules in Public Finance Statistics. Although the European Union (EU) has spent an entire decade of work and investment in the development of these statistics, the Ministry of Finance still does not publish them, even though they are available," Radojević said in a statement.
The reason, she said, seems obvious - the implementation of the ESA 2010 standard significantly changes the fiscal picture of Montenegro, increasing the reported percentage of public debt and deficit in relation to gross domestic product (GDP).
"This would show how far Montenegro really is from meeting the Maastricht criteria, that is, the EU's fiscal constraints, that the budget deficit must not exceed three percent of GDP and public debt must not exceed 60 percent of GDP," warned Radojević.
The European Commission (EC), as it announced, has been noting for years that without valid data on the state of public finances, it is impossible to close the negotiation chapters 18-Statistics, 17-Economic Criteria, and 33-Financial and Budgetary Provisions.
According to Radojević, since 2015, when the Ministry of Finance promised European partners gradual alignment with ESA 2010, a lot has changed - five governments, six finance ministers and five chief negotiators.
"However, the expert and managerial staff of the Ministry of Finance, responsible for this area, has remained unchanged. Even some of the key bearers of this unfinished business have advanced after 2020. However, fiscal transparency has not advanced along with them. Data on public finances, aligned with European standards, are still not available to the domestic public, and cannot be found on the Eurostat website," said Radojević.
Instead of completing the work it has started, the Ministry of Finance, as Radojević said, is trying to shift responsibility to Monstat, even though that institution does not have adequate resources to perform such a complex task.
"According to the latest EC report, Monstat lacks as much as 40 percent of the necessary staff. At the same time, the Ministry of Finance is implementing changes to the legal regulations, not with the aim of strengthening professional independence and creating better conditions for Monstat's work, but in order to formally transfer its unfinished work of processing and publishing public finance statistics to this already overburdened institution," said Radojević.
According to her, ignoring European rules in presenting the state of public finances poses not only a statistical, but also a financial and political risk.
"We must not forget that concealing the true state of public finances and manipulating statistics led to the financial collapse in Greece in 2009. When the correct data finally came to light, it was too late - investor confidence collapsed, and austerity measures hit the most vulnerable segments of society, leaving long-term socio-economic consequences," concluded Radojević.
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