Israeli Parliament approves state budget

By IANS | Published: September 3, 2021 12:27 PM2021-09-03T12:27:02+5:302021-09-03T12:40:34+5:30

Tel Aviv, Sep 3 The Israeli Parliament has approved the state budget in a preliminary vote years after ...

Israeli Parliament approves state budget | Israeli Parliament approves state budget

Israeli Parliament approves state budget

Tel Aviv, Sep 3 The Israeli Parliament has approved the state budget in a preliminary vote years after two years of a political deadlock.

On Thursday, the lawmakers voted 59-54 in favour of the proposed budget, a spokesperson for the Parliament, or Knesset, said in a statement.

The vote means the budget still needs to pass two additional rounds of votes before it gets final approval, reports Xinhua news agency.

According to a statement issued earlier by the Finance Ministry, the state budget for 2021 will be about 432.5 billion shekels ($135 billion) and about 452.5 billion shekels for 2022 ($141 billion.)

The approval is widely regarded as a major milestone to the cross-partisan coalition government headed by Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, who succeeded the country's longest-serving leader Benjamin Netanyahu in June.

The budget proposal was approved in early August by Bennett's cabinet.

It would go now to discussions at a Parliament committee, which will prepare it for the second and third round of votes at the Knesset plenum.

The budget needs to be approved by the Knesset by a November 5 deadline, otherwise Parliament will be automatically dissolved and new elections will be called.

During the past two years of political deadlock and four elections, Israel used a version of the state budget for 2019, which was approved in March 2018.

Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor

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