The request was made Thursday evening, people close to the talks told Mediafax, as international financial institutions say the deficit calculated according to ESA standards (used by the European Commission) should be the same with the one calculated by the cash methodology (used by Romanian authorities).
The different views were confirmed by Romania’s budget minister Darius Valcov, who said his only mandate in the current negotiations is to get approval for a deficit of 1.4% of GDP for 2015, with a possible increase allowed for cofinancing of EU-funded projects.
Joint teams from the IMF and the EU’s executive arm are currently in Bucharest to discuss next year’s budget draft.
The talks are expected to be tough, as Romania wants to increase the deficit target previously agreed with the international creditors, while the IMF and the EU wants to be sure the local government is able to cover the funding gap caused the measures adopted earlier this year, such as a cut of the social security taxes and salary and pension increases starting with January.
In September last year, Romania and the IMF signed a EUR1.98 billion two-year precautionary loan program, the third financial package the eastern European country has received in the last four years. The package also includes funds from the European Commission and the World Bank.
According to its loan agreements, Romania pledged to cut its government deficit to 1.4% of GDP, corresponding to a structural deficit of 1% of GDP in 2015.
For this year, Romania estimated a deficit of 2.2% of GDP.