Sources inform ''Globes'' that Prime Minister's Office director general Eyal Gabbai and Ministry of Finance Budget Director Udi Nissan will meet Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin to persuade him to submit the 2011-12 economic arrangements bill during the Knesset winter session. The meeting comes after previous attempts by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Minister of Finance Yuval Steinitz in recent weeks all failed.
By law, the Knesset Speaker submits bills to the Knesset on behalf of the government, but in practice the Speaker acts as a barrier to government bills. The annual economic arrangements bill is a collection of unrelated measures, which are submitted together with the annual budget bill. The Knesset plenum is supposed to vote on both bills together.
Rivlin strongly opposes the current economic arrangements bill for several reasons. First, he wants the government to excise from the bill all items related to criminal law on the grounds that they have no budgetary aspects and should therefore not be part of a budget bill. He also opposes the so-called development tax and other items, which are already going through normal legislative procedures, and which are stuck in various Knesset committees.
Rivlin's biggest objection, however, is to the inclusion of items, such as the Wisconsin Plan, which Knesset committees have already rejected.
Rivlin also says that this year's economic arrangements bill includes structural reforms that go too far, such as the reform of the Israel Broadcasting Authority. He says that the Knesset should thoroughly discuss these reforms and that they should not be cobbled together with a slew of other measures.
A senior Knesset source said, "Rivlin has climbed a very high tree. If Gabbai and Nissan do not concede part of the bill, it is not certain that Rivlin will agree."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on September 6, 2010
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