Budget between a rock and a hard place: Document on the illegality of the most important financial document circulates through the FBiH Parliament!

(Patria) - In the House of Representatives of the Parliament of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, as Politicki.ba learns, an urgent objection addressed to the Legislative-Legal Committee is circulating, in which the Proposal of the Budget of the Federation of BiH for 2026 is marked as legally questionable and contrary to the current Law on Budgets in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The document states that the FBiH Government knowingly violated basic fiscal rules and bypassed legally prescribed fiscal coordination procedures.

MPs will be able to discuss this as early as tomorrow. The Speaker of the House of Representatives of the Parliament of F BiH, Dragan Mioković, has scheduled a session for tomorrow and the day after, at which the Budget Proposal will be discussed.

The submitters of the objection claim that the budget attempts to suspend a systemic law, without any formal procedure for its amendment, which the document assesses as a serious violation of fiscal discipline and the legal order of the Federation of BiH.



Budget planned contrary to mandatory legal norm

The objection states that the FBiH Government grossly violated Article 43 of the Law on Budgets in the Federation of BiH, which explicitly prohibits planning a negative current balance, except in the case of a declaration of a natural disaster or catastrophe, which has not been done in the Federation of BiH.

According to the Budget Proposal for 2026, revenues of the Federation of BiH are planned in the amount of 6,511,226,666 KM, while expenditures are planned at 7,697,731,075 KM. The difference between revenues and expenditures amounts to minus 1,186,504,409 KM, which represents a planned current deficit, reports Politicki.ba.

The document states that there is no legal basis for such a budget, and that its adoption would mean a de facto suspension of the Law on Budgets in the Federation of BiH by the Parliament, which the objection qualifies as an unacceptable derogation of a systemic law.

Lack of fiscal coordination and ignoring cantons

Particularly problematic is the violation of Article 41 of the Law on Budgets in the Federation of BiH, which prescribes the mandatory role of the Fiscal Coordination Body of the Federation of BiH in defining fiscal goals and borrowing.

The objection states that the FBiH Government did not submit with the Budget Proposal for 2026 the opinion of the Fiscal Coordination Body, nor the minutes of the meeting at which the planned level of borrowing would have been considered and approved. At the same time, the budget provides for new borrowing in the amount of 2,336,952,480 KM.

The document, as further stated in the text of Politicki.ba, warns that the borrowing of the Federation of BiH is done at the expense of the common fiscal space of the cantons and local self-government units, and that the lack of coordination directly threatens the fiscal stability of the entire Federation.

Request for urgent reaction from the Parliament

In the concluding part of the objection, it is stated that the FBiH Government, through the budget as an act of lower legal force, is attempting to derogate the current law, avoiding the procedure for its amendment in order to retroactively legalize the planning of the current deficit.

Therefore, the Legislative-Legal Committee of the House of Representatives of the Parliament of FBiH is requested to urgently determine whether the Proposal of the Budget of the Federation of BiH for 2026 is in accordance with Articles 41 and 43 of the Law on Budgets in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and to request from the FBiH Government the submission of the minutes of the Fiscal Coordination Body regarding fiscal goals and planned borrowing.