For the past 10 years the Budget day in Ireland has been in early December with most changes taking effect from January . Retailers have been asking for it to be moved away from December because thay think it affects the Christmas spending.
It looks like future Budgets could be as early as October because of new EU rules. The so called “two-pack”, which has just been agreed at EU level, introduces a common budgetary timeline for all Euro-area members.
The new law, gives the Commission an extra level of oversight on member countries’ budgets. Governments can ignore the commission’s recommendations but risk EU legal action by doing so.
The deal , agreed last month , is expected to become law in March and will oblige all euro zone governments to send draft budgets for the following year to the Commission before October 15th for verification.
Member States are required to publish their draft budget for central government no later than 15 October, each year. The final budget has to be adopted by 31st December.
So – we can expect to know most of what is going to be in the Budget by October 15th – there are sure to be leaks as usual . We can probably expect Budget day to be sometime in late October or in November in 2014.