In 469 pages of texts, tables, graphics and strategies, what stands out most from the proposal State Budget for 2025 (OE2025) presented this Thursday by the Minister of Finance, Joaquim Miranda Sarmento? From a purely textual analysis, the first right-wing budget in nine years stands out from the last two socialist budgets – but there are also commonalities.
Dissecting the more than 145 thousand words (and almost 880 thousand characters) that make up the body of text do OE2025 – this excludes indexes and annexes – the main terms used do not differ much, on a superficial analysis. A not very surprising conclusion, considering the proximity that exists at various points between the two parties at the center of the national political spectrum. But come on.
A more in-depth analysis of the text allows us to understand which terms in OE2025 stand out most in relation to previous budgets. This is where we see a reflection of what the first months of the Government of Montenegro have been: compared to OE2024 and OE2023, the words that stand out most in the document for 2025 are headed by “supplement”, in a list that has several terms related to education, nurses, journalism and emigration.
The term “supplement”, for example, is found 30 times in the body of the OE2025 text. It is not a significant frequency if we consider the 145 thousand words that make it up, but it stands out for being used much more this year than in previous years (none in 2024 and only twice in 2023). The reason lies in the last months of action by the Government, which negotiated the increase in supplements in the Armed Forces and security forces.
In education, the words “classes” and “MECI” (acronym for Ministry of Education, Science and Innovation) occupy the second and fourth places on this list. The document makes several mentions of the problem of the high number of students missing classes and addresses various topics in the educational area, from reviewing the competencies of the ministry’s services to improving learning.
The analysis of OE2025 also highlights the word “nurses” – with whom agreements were also negotiated – as well as more frequent references to “journalism” than in the last two budgets. In the first 25 results of this analysis it is also possible to find “AIMA”, an acronym for the recently created Agency for Integration, Migration and Asylum, and also the term “emigration”, always referred to in relation to the departure of young people and the most qualified.
And speaking of youth, how frequent is the pair of words “IRS Young”? It is mentioned only nine times in the body text of OE2025, far from the most common word pairs. In this aspect, comparing budgets is somewhat fruitless.
The most common word combinations are very similar in all budgets: “public policies”, “budget programs” and “public administrations” make up the podium in the three years analyzed, and the remaining 20 most used pairs are not far from the rule. The pattern is similar if we look at the most used words individually: “expense” e “public” lead the count in the three documents analyzed.
