Israel: Parliament approves the 2022 budget

After a marathon vote, the Knesset, the Israeli Parliament, approved the state budget for 2022 in the early hours of Wednesday morning, with the new governing coalition under Prime Minister Naftali Bennett thus passing a test that is victorious.

Israeli lawmakers began voting Wednesday night on the 2021 budget, which was adopted yesterday morning (24889651); a new round of voting followed, ending with the adoption of the 2022 budget shortly after 03:00 (local time and Greek time).

“After years of chaos, we have formed a government, defeated the (s.s. variant of the new coronavirus) Delta and now, God willing, we will have a state budget,” Prime Minister Bennett said earlier. “Tonight, we put Israel back on track. We finally have a budget,” he added via Twitter after the results of the vote were announced.

Between December 2018 and June 2021, Israel plunged into an unprecedented political crisis, which led to four early elections. During this time, the parliamentarians could not reach an agreement and approve the budget of the Jewish state.

The heterogeneous ruling coalition (right, center, left, Arabs) under Naftali Bennett and the current head of Israeli diplomacy, Yair Lapid, who succeeded Benjamin Netanyahu this June – the politician who’s most prominent put an end to three years of political crisis.

The new government decided to present the state budgets for 2021 and 2022 at the same time, as the vote on the first one was mandatory before the November 14 deadline. In the event that the 2021 budget was not adopted, the Knesset would be dissolved and new early elections would be called.

The budget for 2022 provides for public spending of around € 126 billion. Approved by 59 votes to 56.

The lack of a budget approved by parliament in recent years has been seen as a brake on any long-term economic planning.

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