According to media reports, the vote could already be completed on Friday night – or not until Sunday, as a spokesman for the Speaker of Parliament said.
If the budget for 2021 is not approved by November 14, the Knesset would automatically disband. A new election would then have to take place 90 days later. This also applies in the event that the government loses the vote on the budget beforehand, the spokesman said earlier. The government also wants to approve the budget for 2022.
Last year, the then government under the long-term right-wing conservative Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu failed to reach an agreement on a budget. Shortly before Christmas, the Knesset dissolved. The election followed in March.
The new government was sworn in in mid-June. The permanent political crisis in Israel thus came to an end for the time being with four elections within two years. However, the coalition only has a wafer-thin majority in parliament. It is supported by a total of eight parties from the right to the left – including an Arab party for the first time.
According to the Knesset, the responsible finance committee has confirmed the budget with a volume of around 165 billion euros for the year 2021 and around 155 billion euros for the year 2022.
The last time the Knesset passed a budget was in March 2018 for 2019. Since then, the country has been governed on the basis of the previous year’s budget, as a spokeswoman for the Ministry of Finance announced before the vote.