Andrić: Božović confirmed that Damjanović was not honest when he negotiated with educators

Member of Parliament for the Europe Now Movement Jelenka Andrić said that the President of the Education Union Radomir Božović confirmed that Aleksandar Damjanović, the former Minister of Finance in the Government of Dritan Abazović, was not honest when he negotiated with the educators and that he did not foresee an increase in the fiscal guidelines for the year 2024. although he was well aware of that obligation".

"How (ir)responsibly the previous government managed the salary fund of public sector employees is best shown by the fact that in 2024, it is necessary to provide an additional 40 million euros for gross salary expenses. This happened due to excessive employment by the previous government, so we can state that the newly employed have largely canceled the promises made about salary increases," said deputy Andrić.

She pointed out that, bearing in mind the above, a further increase in wages of 10 percent would not only require 19 million euros for the needs of education, but that it would require an additional allocation for the entire state administration and institutions in the public system, which, as she stated, is about 70 million euros, as well as roughly eight million euros for the needs of municipalities.

"Therefore, those almost 120 million euros of additional funds in 2024 for these purposes cannot be provided at this moment respecting the principles of responsible management of public finances, and bearing in mind that the state would have to borrow for the same amount," she adds.

Andrić said that the adopted Budget for 2024 has a "firm commitment that not a single cent of debt" goes to finance current spending.

"Also, it should be noted that the recent wage increases, which only applied to employees in the public administration, created an imbalance in the labor market, bearing in mind that the public sector has become more attractive, which to some extent damaged the environment on the labor market and difficult business conditions in the private sector, and an additional increase in wages at this moment would only further deepen the already existing gap," the MP adds.

He says that the system approach is "the only real approach", because "the previous ad hoc solutions did not have the desired effect, and the results show it best".

"Confirmation of the correctness of this approach is the fact that the initial catalyst for the first significant increase in salary for educators was the implementation of the Europe Now 1 program, which will be continued with the Europe Now 2 program," concludes Andrić.