Freshly appointed Austrian Finance Minister Hartwig Loeger said he wants to present a combined budget for the years 2018 and 2019, with savings of around €2.5 billion this year.

“The structural deficit will be at around 0.5 per cent next year,” Mr Loeger, an experienced, former insurance industry executive, was quoted as saying in an interview with Austrian newspaper Der Standard.

He said that in order to reach a balanced budget “at the earliest within the next two to three years”, Austria would have to save around €2.5 billion next year.

Last month, Chancellor Sebastian Kurz formed a new government which included the anti-immigration Freedom Party.

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