By Milan Ćulibrk, Editor of the Economy segment
Something is clearly not right with the country’s public finances. The authorities do not hide the fact that their highest priority this year is the construction of facilities in which the specialised international exhibition Expo is supposed to open in a year’s time, on 15 May 2027.
On 29 April, President Aleksandar Vučić repeated for the umpteenth time that all works must be completed by 1 December and that any delay would represent a “serious failure for the state”.
However, unlike Vučić, who claims that the works are progressing “according to schedule”, the budget data do not exactly confirm this. Under this year’s Budget Law, 42.6 billion dinars were allocated for Expo, while Radar reveals that by the end of April only two and a half billion dinars had actually been paid out from the state treasury – less than six per cent of the planned amount. And only six and a half months remain until the deadline for completing all facilities expires.
Twice as much money for the railway to Expo than for the buildings hosting the exhibition
That figure alone does not necessarily mean that construction works are equally delayed, because there is increasing unofficial information that contractors – mostly companies close to the ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) – are being asked to work “on credit”, with payment to follow later.
Some of them, however, fear that snap parliamentary elections could be organised before 1 December and that, should SNS lose, a new government might not be especially willing to pay “someone else’s” bills. All the more so because major state projects are generally contracted outside the Law on Public Procurement, through direct agreements.
That something unusual is happening can also be seen from the fact that the state paid out 49.7 billion dinars for Expo in 2024, 43.7 billion last year, and only 2.5 billion dinars in the first four months of this year. Altogether, around 815 million euros have already been spent, while it is estimated that at least another 500 million euros will be needed for works that are supposed to be completed by 1 December. This means that over the remaining six and a half months the state will need to allocate 25 times more money for financing those works than it did during the first four months.
Radar’s sources point out, however, that this year’s expenditure should be increased by another 1.8 billion dinars, which was paid out from the budget for the construction of “facilities” A and B, also part of Expo but recorded separately. Similarly, in December last year, expenditure amounting to 22.3 billion dinars was booked as a separate item for financing “facilities” B and E.
In any case, intensified financing of Expo in the coming period can be expected to deepen the deficit in the state treasury, which by the end of April, Radar has learned exclusively, had reached almost 100 billion dinars – 22 per cent higher than during the same period last year. Specifically, in the first four months, slightly under 754 billion dinars flowed into the budget, while expenditure reached 853.4 billion dinars. By comparison, during the same period last year the deficit stood at 78 billion.
The hole in the budget is growing deeper month by month
Compared with the first four months of last year, revenues this year increased by 10.2 per cent, but expenditure grew even faster, at a rate of 12 per cent. What could cause Finance Minister Siniša Mali an additional headache is that there is little chance of repeating 2025, when in May, June and July total revenues exceeded expenditure by 55 billion dinars. Not even the greatest optimists believe that scenario will be repeated this year.
It is unlikely that the budget will move from deficit into surplus merely because, on 8 May, the state-owned Poštanska Štedionica Bank paid nearly three billion dinars into the budget in dividends, as Radar has learned.
The cost of the Morava Corridor reached EUR 2 bn
Especially considering that by the end of April only 63 billion dinars from excise duties on petroleum products had flowed into the budget – as much as 10.3 billion less than during the same period last year. Nominally, those revenues declined by 14.5 per cent and, in real terms, by 16.7 per cent.
At the same time, the Government reduced excise duties only in mid-March, so it may be assumed that the monthly loss on that basis exceeds five billion dinars. If this trend continues until the end of the year, the budget could lose almost half a billion euros on that basis alone. Automatically, the deficit would increase by that amount compared with the planned 2.9 billion euros, unless some expenditures are cut accordingly.
It is indicative, however, that on certain other projects the Government was not nearly as frugal as in the case of Expo. Under the Budget Law, within the budget section of the Ministry of Construction, Transport and Infrastructure, seven billion dinars were reserved this year for the construction of transport infrastructure for Expo, and another 5.1 billion next year.
Yet by the end of April alone, 5.8 billion dinars had already been paid out from the state treasury merely for the railway from Zemun Polje to Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport and the future Expo complex – as much as 82 per cent of the sum planned for this year, Radar has learned. The total cost of that railway has so far exceeded 30 billion dinars, or 256 million euros.
Twice as much money as for Expo was directed by the authorities by the end of April towards the expressway from Novi Sad to Ruma, thereby increasing the total cost of the Fruška Gora Corridor to 570 million euros.
11.2 billion dinars were paid out this year for the continuation of works on the Morava Corridor, pushing its total cost up to 232.8 billion dinars, or two billion euros. Quite strangely, this year even more money than for Expo was spent on the National Stadium, which has so far cost the state treasury 415 million euros.
(Radar, 17.05.2026)