Bosnia's lawmakers approved a law to cut military pensions on Monday, a key step towards winning funds from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The lawmakers from autonomous Bosniak-Croat federation, which makes Bosnia along with the Serb Republic, approved a law that unifies pension rules for veterans of the 1992-95 war with 56 votes for, 12 against, and 12 abstained.
The law must also be approved by the parliament's upper house, which will convene on Thursday, so that the IMF's executive board can release a 40 million euros ($52.34 million) loan tranche at the end of April. The IMF has disbursed 120 million euros of a two-year 405 million euro ($518 million) loan approved in September to plug the budget gaps of Bosnia's two regions. "Without the (law) adoption, the Federation budget will get into enormous problems," Bosniak-Croat Federation Prime Minister Nermin Niksic told the deputies. "We shall indirectly jeopardise the budgets of the state and the Serb Republic." The 2.2 billion marka ($1.4 billion) Bosniak-Croat budget has a 418 million marka deficit, and 300 million are expected from the IMF and the European Commission, which also insists on the terms of the standby programme.