Serbian Finance Minister Lazar Krstic resigned on Saturday, citing differences with the prime minister over the pace and depth of reforms to rein in public spending. Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic has promised radical reforms to cut back Serbia's bloated public sector and rein in a consolidated budget deficit threatening to exceed 8 percent of national output.
The government on Saturday adopted a raft of changes to labour and pension legislation, raising the retirement age for women and loosening rules on hiring and firing. But Krstic said he had wanted the reforms to go further, faster. He told reporters he had sought pension cuts of at least 20 percent, public sector wage cuts of at least 15 percent, an electricity price hike of 30 percent, and for a minimum of 160,000 public sector workers to be laid off.
"We have different approaches to the dynamics," Krstic told a news conference alongside a grim-faced Vucic. "The prime minister has a good heart, and that's why he has the support of the people," he said. "I considered that these measures should be implemented immediately. I think the prime minister and the finance minister should have the same approach, and that's why I have resigned."
Krstic had been finance minister since September last year. Vucic said he would be replaced temporarily, and possibly for the longer term, by Economy Minister Dusan Vujovic. Vucic said Krstic would remain as his special adviser. "I have not a bad word to say about Lazar, or to say that he wasn't right," said Vucic. "But I am not capable of implementing it and the people of Serbia could not accept it."
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