Israeli ministers have unanimously approved a plan for the country to switch to a two-year budget system, a pet proposal pushed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who says it will promote fiscal stability.
The move will go into effect for the budgets of 2017 and 2018, but will not include a mechanism that would have automatically updated the budget in line with Finance Ministry forecasts. Instead after the first year, the budget will be reviewed and amended as needed, according to Army Radio.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu leads the weekly government meeting in Jerusalem on July 17, 2016. (Alex Kolomoisky/POOL)
The passage draws jeers from the opposition, including Zionist Union MK Eitan Cabel, who calls it an “economic terror attack” and accuses Netanyahu of having nefarious motives.
“The prime minister did not push through the bi-annual budget out of concern for Israel’s economy, but from concern for his political survival. He is doing everything to hide difficult figures — a dozens of percent drop in exports, the crash of high tech, no new factories, and 60,000 business that have closed,” he says, according to the Walla news site.
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