The Serbian Fiscal Council said that the government anti-pandemic measures could have cost 2 billion Euro less than the authorities spent.

“If the anti-crisis measures during the coronavirus pandemic had been better directed towards the endangered segments of the economy and population, up to two billion Euro less could have been spent from the budget,” the independent government body said in its latest report.

The report added that Serbian public finances were burdened with some 5.4 billion Euro during the crisis. It said that the strong fiscal policy measures were justified but not selective making them more expensive.

About 1.5 billion Euro could have been saved by providing aid to the population using the same criteria as other countries of central and eastern Europe. “All things considered, we believe that some 2 billion Euro or around 4 percent of the GDP could have been saved if the budget funds had been directed to the worst affected segments of the economy and population with a slightly lower GDP growth,” the report said. It recalled that the funds for the support measures came from loans which increased Serbia’s public debt by some 6 billion Euro in 2021 compared to the end of 2019.

The Fiscal Council said that Serbia’s higher spending on its health care system compared to other countries in central and eastern Europe was inevitable because of decades of insufficient investments.