Serbia’s public debt exceeded 27 billion euros in mid-October 2020, including the unsecured debt of local governments of around 400 million euros, said today the professor at the Faculty of Economics, Finance and Administration (FEFA) in Belgrade, Goran Radosavljevic.
“All those obligations according to the funds that were withdrawn by the state of Serbia enter the public debt, and what was signed, but not withdrawn, will become a public debt only when the funds are activated,” Radosavljevic said for Beta.
The leader of the Party of Freedom and Justice (SAA), Dragan Djilas, stated that Serbia withdrew 27 billion euros, and that it owes or will owe in the next few years, 50.4 billion euros when the funds are withdrawn.
Radosavljevic said that “it is assumed that some obligations will be repaid in the meantime, and certainly the public debt in the future will not be equal to the simple sum of the current and all agreed future borrowings”.
“Therefore, the claim that Serbia will owe 50 billion euros in the coming years because it has agreed on such a high level of new borrowing at this moment, can hardly be confirmed,” said Radosavljevic.
He added that, judging by the fact that the government is poorly efficient in the realization of public investments, the big question is the dynamics of loan withdrawal and that it can happen as before that many deadlines are extended and funds are not withdrawn.
According to him, the calculation, according to which Serbia will soon owe 50 billion euros, is similar to the calculation according to which the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) claimed that the debt of the City of Belgrade in 2013 was more than one billion euros, although the official Ministry of Finance confirmed that the debt was about 450 million euros.
“In these billion euros, the SNS calculated all future interest rates and obligations related to loan repayment, which did not fall due, which is certainly not in line with the official methodology, nor is it comparable to the actual state of public debt,” said Radosavljevic.
He pointed out that “regardless of the very dirty and dishonest campaign that the SNS has been leading for nine years and which is full of lies about everything and even something that is easily verifiable, the opposition should fight for the truth.”
According to him, it is true at this moment that Serbia had a public debt of 15.45 billion euros in July 2012, when the SNS took power, and that today it amounts to over 27 billion.
For the previous nine years, as he said, Serbia is indebted for about 12 billion euros or about 2,000 euros of additional debt for every adult citizen.
“I think that is already alarming enough, so there is no need to add to this story some future debts that can, but do not have to be realized,” said Radosavljevic, Beta reports.
