Budget, Financial Services, Latvia

Only last month the minister told journalists that the fiscal space in next year’s budget might be slightly more than EUR 80 million, but promised updated estimates in August.

Next week, on August 22, the Cabinet of Ministers is due to start reviewing issues related to Latvia’s 2018 and medium-term budget.

The government will hear the Finance Ministry’s reports on macroeconomic, revenue and budgetary forecasts for 2018-2020, results of a budget expenditure revision for 2018, 2019 and 2020, on the declaration of fiscal risks and budget priorities for 2018, 2019 and 2020.

The upcoming Cabinet of Ministers meeting is also expected to provide clarity about the exact size of Latvia’s fiscal space in 2018, which according to Reizniece-Ozola is likely to be worth around EUR 60 million.

The Finance Ministry’s preliminary estimates, released in July, suggested that Latvia's fiscal space will be EUR 81.2 million in 2018, EUR 19.9 million in 2019 and EUR 311.8 million in 2020.