IMF board discusses Romanian report

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) board is meeting on Friday to analyse the report on Romania’s assessment of the country’s likely success or failure to comply with the engagements taken in the Stand-By Agreement, Romanian news agency Agerpres informs.

Public Finance minister Sebastian Vladescu announced on Tuesday that the IMF meeting was going to take place on July 2 and that a new IMF mission was going to arrive in Romania after July 20.

According to IMF spokesperson Caroline Atkinson, Romanian authorities managed to find alternative measures to compensate for the incomes that will not go the state budget, after the Constitutional Court ruled the unconstitutionality verdict on the cut in pensions.

Asked whether the IMF was satisfied by the measure adopted by the Romanian Government, namely the 5% increase in VAT, the IMF spokesperson underlined that „Romanian authorities managed to identify alternative measures”, following the verdict from Bucharest.

IMF Bureau chief for Romania and Bulgaria Tonny Lybek expressed the same position, declaring that „Romanian authorities have demonstrated a firm attitude regarding their economic programme – supported by the Stand-By Agreement – by rapidly identifying compensatory measures, after the Constitutional Court decision.”

The IMF Board discussion is going to influence the decision of granting Romania the fifth loan instalment, worth of 850-900 million Euros. According to the current IMF practice, an instalment is sent within 48 hours from the moment of the Board’s approval.

The debate was initially scheduled for July 28, but it was cancelled because of the decision ruled out by the Romanian Constitutional Court on pensions.

The financial assistance programme for Romania is worth a total 20 billion Euros. It is backed by the IMF (12.9 billion Euros), the European Commission (5 bn), the World Bank (1 bn) and other international funding bodies.

So far, Romania received nearly 9.3 bn Euros from the IMF, 2.5 billion from the EU and 300 million Euros from the World Bank.