UK - Gordon Brown
When the Chancellor, Mr Gordon Brown, presented his pre-Budget report last week, his key proposal was to start a national debate about how long-term improvements to the National Health Service would be funded. Pledging an extra £1 billion (sterling) for the service over the next year and rejecting an insurance-based scheme to raise more funds, Mr Brown acknowledged a significantly higher share of national income - which means higher taxes - would be necessary to deliver Labour's promise of a "world-class" health service.
Direct taxes, however, may not have to rise too soon. As a result of Mr Brown's careful leadership of the economy during Labour's first term, economic growth forecasts of between 2 to 2.5 per cent next year and up to 3.25 per cent in 2003 should see Britain scrape through a world recession. Increased spending on public services under Labour, higher levels of consumer spending and seven cuts in interest rates in nine months have also buoyed the housing market and injected more money back into the economy.
It is not all good news. Britain's manufacturing base is still contracting, by 1.75 per cent this year, and forecasts of an increase in exports of at least 5.5 per cent this year have been revised to under 1 per cent. Similarly, forecasts for fixed investment - the so-called "seedcorn" of future growth - have been downgraded from over 5.5 per cent to 1 per cent.
State pensions will also rise by a guaranteed £100 (sterling) year-on-year by 2003 and business taxes have been reduced and simplified.
-- Rachel Donnelly
France - Laurent Fabius
The French budget for 2002 foresees total spending of €268,996 billion, with a deficit of €30,438 billion. Finance Minister Laurent Fabius is continuing his €6 billion tax reduction plan for the second year. Income tax will decrease another 0.75 of a percentage point for the four lowest categories, 0.5 f a point for the two highest tax brackets.
Tax on small and medium size companies continues to fall. Businesses will pay 15 per cent tax - rather than 25 per cent before - on the first €38,112 of earnings. A "social contribution" of 10 per cent, voted in 1995, is being phased out and falls from 6 per cent to 3 per cent. Special taxes on oil companies remain in place. New measures adopted in the 2002 budget include the doubling of the "job bonus" which is meant to encourage the unemployed to seek work and a reform of the "special funds" which rewarded government ministers and their cabinet members with hundreds of millions of francs in cash bonuses. Henceforward, French officials will receive extra payments by cheque which they are expected to declare on income tax forms.
An amendment which would have required the presidential palace to justify increases in expenditure was withdrawn, but the ╔lysΘe will nonetheless have to provide a note explaining how euros 5.49 mn in credits are used. The "Tobin Tax", which will levy up to 0.1 per cent on international capital movements, will be enacted if other EU countries adopt the same measure.
Self-employed artisans will be exempted from the "vignette" car tax for vehicles weighing less than 3.5 tonnes. Taxpayers over the age of 65 will no longer pay the television licence fee. The exemption previously started at age 70.
-- Lara Marlowe
Germany - Hans Eichel
This is not the election the German finance minister, Mr Hans Eichel, hoped for. A year ago his exchequer wallet was bulging with nearly €50 billion from the mobile phone license auction and unemployment was sinking towards the election target of 3.5 million people. Now, with an election looming next autumn, there are close on four million out of work. And depending on who you ask, the German economy is either on the brink of recession or already in decline.'
The five economic "wise men" who advise the government say the German economy will grow by only 0.6 per cent this year, against a eurozone average of 1.6 per cent, and by 0.7 per cent in 2002. Mr Eichel got tarred as the "recession finance minister" during last week's budget debate. Despite the economic gloom, a stern Mr Eichel vowed to remain within his spending and borrowing parameters and says he will still achieve his long-term aim of a balanced budget by 2006. Spending in the 2002 budget is up 1.5 per cent to €247.5 billion while net borrowing is down €1 billion to €22.3 billion. The government is holding out against bringing forward planned tax cuts to stimulate the economy, saying that sinking oil prices and falling inflation are having a more pronounced effect than any economic stimulus package could. The five wise men say the economic situation will turn the corner sometime next year, but for now, Europe's largest economy is bringing up the rear.
-- Derek Scally
US - Paul O'Neill
With the US in recession and a record budget surplus turning into a deficit, a unique aspect of American economic democracy has become brutally clear - no one is totally in charge. Budgets are fought over by Congress, and currently Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, White House economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey and budget director Mitchell Daniels, are reduced to the role of arm twisters for Republican President George W Bush. Mr Bush wants
Congress to approve a $60 billion stimulus package to lift the economy in the wake of September 11th, but faces stiff opposition from the Democratic-controlled Senate. The White House package would include the retroactive appeal of the 1986 Alternative Minimum Tax, which would refund some $25 billion to businesses, including campaign donors like IBM, GM and General Electric. Democratic senators insist on more help for thousands of laid off workers, saying that Mr Bush's proposal of expanded health and unemployment benefits is not enough. The Republican House has separately come up with a $100 billion package which includes a reduction of the 27 percent tax bracket to 25 percent in 2002 instead of 2006, but with more spending than Mr Bush would like. The deadlock follows early budgetary successes for the administration, including a $1.35 trillion tax cut in the spring. Adding to the chaos now is a row between the White House and New York Republicans over the administration's failure to honour a promise of $20 billion in disaster aid: only $12 has been set aside.
-- Conor O'Clery
Spain - Cristobal Montora
With the revenue set to fall by 13 per cent and spending by 9.5 per cent on expected figures for this year, Spain's central government will operate on a tighter budget in 2002. The draft 2002 budget, already approved in the lower house of parliament (Cortes) where the ruling centre-right Popular Party (PP) holds a majority, is due to be passed into law by the end of the year once it has been voted on by the PP-dominated Senate. One of the most striking features of the budget is the granting of extra tax-and-spend powers to Spain's regional governments, part of changes in the system of financing them.
On presenting the draft budget last September, the government said that 52 per cent of expenditure would be considered social spending, which would help create 280,000 new jobs. Spain is aiming for a balanced public sector budget this year for the first time in more than 25 and has announced this aim would be extended into 2002. Total government income has been set at €108 billion and expenditures at €112.6 billion, but the balanced budget was still on course because of the surplus in Social Security income.
The budget also includes a package of company and personal tax breaks designed to stimulate economic growth in the face of an international slowdown. It includes lower capital gains tax, relief on pension contributions, on research and development spending, and on goodwill writedowns following takeovers. The draft budget maintains official forecasts of economic growth in real terms of 3 per cent and 2.9 per cent in 2001 and 2002 respectively. That growth would bring GDP next year to €686 billion.
-- David Cemlyn Johns
Italy - Giulio Tremonti
On the late September day that Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi first presented his £17 million (Euro) Budget of cuts and savings, he suggested that it should be seen as part of a "global operation" in which the developed world was struggling to deal with the effects of economic slowdown. In the immediate post-Twin Towers climate, his sentiments were understandable.
Yet, the reality of Mr. Berlusconi's first budget since winning last May's General Election is that it falls short of his campaign promises of sweeping personal and corporate tax cuts. Both Mr. Berlusconi and his Treasury Minister Giulio Tremonti, however, were at pains to argue that their budget plans had been sharply trimmed not only by the worldwide economic slump but also by the fact that the outgoing centre-left administration's final "electoral" budget of last year had left Italy on course for a deficit of between 2.8 per cent and 1.7 per cent of GDP.
The £17 million euro package, which is still going through parliament is roughly divided into £6 million euro of spending cuts and £11 million euro of new revenue from measures that include one-off tax amnesties for repatriation of illegally exported savings and for companies wishing to emerge from the "black" economy, as well as revenue from the sale of state-owned real estate.
Based on government predictions of up to 2.3 per cent economic growth rate next year (the IMF recently suggested the Italian economy would more likely grow by 1.4 per cent), the Budget package includes £3 million euros worth of minimum pension rises for the elderly as well as £1.8 million euros worth of defence spending, largely prompted by the cost of sending a 2,700 strong task force to take part in the US-led military action in Afghanistan.
-- Paddy Agnew
Belgium - Didier Reynders
Belgium's liberal-led government continued its ambitious programme of economic reform in this year's budget with cuts in income tax and company tax. But Belgians remain among the most highly taxed Europeans with a top rate of income tax of 52 per cent.
The Finance minister, Mr Didier Reynders, believes that the government's budget will be balanced next year after a succession of surpluses. But some economists predict that a sustained downturn in the global economy could push the budget slightly into the red.
GDP growth is expected to slip from about 1 per cent this year to 0.8 per cent in 2002, before rebounding to more than 2 per cent in 2003. Such forecasts are, however, based on the expectation that Europe's economy will recover in the second half of next year. Business confidence has fallen sharply in Belgium during recent months, raising fears that the government's expectations could be excessively optimistic.
Mr Reynders is unlikely to fulfil all his reforming ambitions by the time the government ends its term of office in 2003. But he has gone a long way towards consolidating Belgium's public finances while making modest tax cuts.
-- Denis Staunton