Yesterday, the Assembly held a marathon session that lasted for over 12 hours, with discussions on the 2025 draft budget.
Today's session closed around 22:00, after numerous debates between the parties on the priorities that the draft supports, as the discussions will continue again today.
At the beginning of the work of the session, Prime Minister Edi Rama presented the draft budget for the next year, where he announced that the bonus for pensioners with a pension of up to 20,000 lek will be tripled, reaching 150 euros, while for those who have a monthly pension of more than 20,000 lek thousand lek, will be doubled going to the amount of 100 euros.
Rama simultaneously announced the opening of a fund at the Bank of Albania that will be used for the pensioners' spring bonus.
On the other hand, the deputy of the Democratic Party, Jorida Tabaku, raised a question whether or not Albanian citizens are better off after 12 socialist budgets.
According to her, even though there is talk of economic growth, the only ones who don't feel it are the Albanians.
"Do Albanians feel this economic growth? Does it translate into the economy in the sectors that play the most important role? The answer is no. Albania today has a gross domestic product, as was said, of 2.5 trillion lek, 25 billion euros, and the contribution of the sectors of the economy to this growth is only one, that of construction. The agriculture sector is 18% of GDP, from 2021 it is decreasing. The industry is also decreasing, 12.4%", stated Tabaku during the discussion of the draft budget in the Assembly.
Tabaku said that there is no moment in the budget where the labor tax is expected to be reduced.