Struggle for a debt ceiling
The government is struggling to gain the necessary support from opposition parties in parliament, making the passage of a regular law more likely
Dec 01, 2011
The government is seeking to set a cap on the state’s annual budget deficits in the constitution, a change requiring a two-thirds majority in parliament.
The move comes amid rising interest rates on Austrian bonds, while the credit rating agency Moody’s said that a cap would strengthen Austria’s creditworthiness, currently rated at "AAA", the Austrian news agency APA reported on 21 Nov.
Yet the government is struggling to gain the necessary support from opposition parties in parliament, making the passage of a regular law more likely.
The plans for a so-called Schuldenbremse ("brake on debt") would cap government over-spending at 0.35% of GDP by 2017, down from its current 3.3%, a limit that Austria has met only once (in 2001) in the past 35 years that the EU statistics bureau Eurostat has kept records, APA reported.