The Bill was presented by State Secretary at the Ministry of Finance Mirjana Cojbasic who said that the key characteristic of the 2018 budget policy is an even distribution of the fiscal area for the purpose of improving living standards through the raise in salaries and pensions, growth incentives via a public investment boost and tax relief through increases in the non-taxable part of income. The 2018 Budget Bill envisages 1,178.4 billion RSD in income, 1,206.8 billion RSD in expenditure, which is a 28.4 deficit i.e. 0.6% GDP for 2018. The State Secretary said that the income projection is conservative and the planned tax income is 988.6 billion RSD, which is 84% of the budget total, while the non-tax related income makes up just 15% of the budget (175.6 billion RSD) and the rest is donations – 7 billion RSD. The good results achieved in 2017 enable an increase in salaries and pensions, 10% for the majority of budget beneficiaries and 5% for pensioners, said Mirjana Cojbasic.

On the behalf of the Ministry of Labour, Employment, Veteran and Social Affairs the Committee members were addressed by State Secretary Srbislav Cvetic who said that, in the 2018 budget, 149.5 billion RSD were allocated for the Ministry: 54.3 for family legal protection, 49.7 for social protection, 23.2 for Republic Pension and Disability Insurance Fund transfers and 14 billion RSD for beneficiaries of veteran disability protection. Three new program activities are planned to be funded by the 2018 budgetary allocations – support for private nursing home care, right to equality and support of women victims of domestic violence. The section concerning the Ministry of Labour, Employment, Veteran and Social Affairs also contains three new funds – Budget Fund for Programmes for Protection and Promotion of Status of Persons with Disabilities, Budget Fund for Social Welfare Institutions and Budget Fund for Professional Rehabilitation and Employment of Persons with Disabilities. The State Secretary also said that by the Bill on Financial Support to Families with Children which is supposed to start implementation on 1 July 2018, would be passed end of the year. The new law expands the right to parental allowance to include women entrepreneurs, farmers and women working outside of employment and the allowance for first-time mothers is raised to 100,000 RSD.

Following a debate the Committee members adopted the Republic of Serbia 2018 Budget Bill – Section 30 Ministry of Labour, Employment, Veteran and Social Affairs Activity, with the accompanying Proposal of the Decision to grant consent to the Republic Pension and Disability Insurance Fund 2018 Financial Plan, Proposal of the Decision to grant consent to the Fund for Social Insurance of Military Insured 2018 Financial Plan and the Proposal of the Decision to grant consent to the National Employment Service 2018 Financial Plan, by majority vote.

The sitting was chaired by Committee Chairperson Dr Vesna Rakonjac and attended by the following Committee members and deputy members: Milanka Jevtovic Vukojicic, Dr Branimir Rancic, Prim. Dr Vlado Babic, Bojan Torbica, Dragan Savkic, Vesna Nikolic Vukajlovic, Tomislav Zigmanov, Milena Corilic, Marija Janjusevic and Enis Imamovic.