Serbian Budget Plan Lacks Pension Overhaul, Vuckovic Says

Serbia’s plan to cut spending and sell money-losing assets to narrow the budget deficit lacks measures to overhaul the pension system and may be difficult to achieve without rolling part of the gap into 2014.

“Structural reforms” that refer to the sale or closure of 179 companies with 54,000 workers and subsidized by the state “are promising,” said Vladimir Vuckovic, a member of the Fiscal Council, a three-member body appointed by parliament to oversee fiscal compliance, in a phone interview today.