State budget draft for this year could be discussed by the Government as of next week only, because the ministries still have projects and priorities that need to be adjusted, as the Executive cannot come up with money to fully meet the requests of the main credit orderers for the time being.
“We’re not at the end of the internal discussions inside the Government yet. We still have unresolved requests from the ministries. Some of our colleagues, as well as the population will have to understand the constraints of an austerity budget,” PM Adrian Nastase yesterday said.
He did not want to pinpoint the “delicate issues” the budget drafting was experiencing and the ministries for which there was not enough money.
On the other hand, he explained that an amount equal to 0.5% of GDP was included in this year’s budget and would be included in the deficit, due to certain social decisions made by the former Government. “I don’t want to blame the former rule now, I only wanted to explain some of the problems,” Nastase explained.
The Government was planning to complete the draft budget per ministries no later than mid February, to present it to Parliament for debate and approval early in March.
Neither the budgetary deficit problem was solved, as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) an institution with which the Government is negotiating a new loan agreement came into play.
“We’re fully aware that the deficit should be somewhere between 3-4%. We want it closer to 4%, while the IMF would like it as close to 3% as possible,” the PM added.
At the same time, the Cabinet is hoping to convince Fund representatives that certain investments, funded from external sources pledged by the state, should be included in the budgetary deficit. The intention would materialise only if the IMF agreed to a higher deficit.
“We want to introduce investments in the budget and it would be a pity not to use the money we got from the EU and remain stuck in the deficit area,” the PM said.