Mugoša: SD submits an amendment in order to establish the Alimony Fund

MPs of the Social Democrats will submit an amendment to the proposal of the Law on the Budget for 2021, in order to plan funds for the establishment of the Alimony Fund in the budget for this year, as an important support mechanism for single parents, MP of the Social Democrats (SD) Boris Mugoša pointed out at the parliamentary committee on health. , work and social care when considering the Budget proposal. He stated that he will propose to set aside an amount for the establishment of the Alimony Fund within the budget reserves, that is, instead of budgeting new funds, it is necessary to redistribute the use of existing planned budget funds. "Because of all that, I expect that in the next few months we will pass a legal framework for the establishment of an Alimony Fund, where the Fund would take over the payment of alimony to a single parent in the case of unscrupulous parents who avoid paying alimony, and the Fund (the state) would use legal mechanisms to collect from those paying alimony. The negative consequences of the coronavirus pandemic have further actualized this issue, because a significant number of parents have lost their jobs, and many have had their incomes reduced," said Mugoša. The Social Democrats state that for this topic it is important to recall certain data according to which only one third of parents regularly pay alimony for their children, as well as data from Monstat that show that almost 60 percent of divorced marriages are marriages with children, of which custody of a dependent child is children in 79,4 percent of cases were entrusted to the mother, in 9,8 percent to the father, in 10,2 percent to parents and in 0,6 percent to other persons and institutions.

"The alimony fund is a legal institution that exists in the countries of the European Union, and high-quality comparative practice can be used to design an adequate model of state support for single parents (e.g., in Croatia, the Law on Temporary Maintenance was adopted, in Slovenia, the Public Guarantee Fund for Maintenance and Disability Insurance was established and others)", reminded Mugoša.