Budget-2015 will be one of the most difficult – Gerashchenko

We are living in a situation where it is primarily necessary to think about strengthening the army, the politician stated.

The President's Commissioner for peaceful settlement of the situation in the East, Iryna Gerashchenko, stated that the budget for the next year will be extremely difficult, but its burden will not fall on ordinary Ukrainians.

“The Budget-2015 will be one of the most difficult. But this does not mean that the entire complexity of this budget should fall on ordinary Ukrainians. It is not so. It is obvious that we are living in a situation where we must support a militarized economy, where we must first think about strengthening the Ukrainian army. We must also bear the colossal burden of restoring those settlements in Donbas that are under the control of the Ukrainian authorities,” she said in the corridors of the Verkhovna Rada on Thursday.

According to her, currently in Ukraine there are officially more than 500 thousand internally displaced persons – every one-hundredth Ukrainian was forced to leave their home.

“This is a huge burden on the budget,” Gerashchenko emphasized.

“Our position is as follows – in such a difficult situation, the budget should abandon all lobbying schemes,” she stated.

Recall that the new head of the Ministry of Finance, Natalia Yaresko, promised to prepare a draft budget for 2015 in the shortest possible time. At the same time, according to her, she intends to “patch” the holes in the budget with external loans.