The Finance Ministry published its plans for adding new debt in 2020, and it projects issues worth 270 million EUR in the first six months of the year.

Macedonia’s public debt broke through the 5 billion EUR barrier under the SDSM Government and now stands at 5.7 billion. More than a billion of this debt was added under Zoran Zaev, who used to strongly critical of the past bond issues.

The budget nears four billion EUR and its main growing components are public sector salaries and welfare transfers, and it seems geared toward the planned April 2020 elections. Zaev today announced he may try to postpone the elections if new bills meant to increase pensions and public sector salaries are not adopted in time.