Romania's representative on IMF discussions: The agreement between the IMF and Romania goes ahead

Romania’s agreement with the IMF „didn’t derail”, it „goes ahead”, assures the Romanian representative at the IMF discussions Mihai Tanasescu. He underlined that the programme between Romania and the foreign financers is continuing, „and that is why I believe better sooner than later and I want to stress my wish that political maturity should prevail this time in Romania”, Tanasescu declared for RFI.

The fear of losing the IMF loan has increased lately. But the ex-Finance minister announced that the IMF, European Commission and the World Bank continue to stick to the programme developed with the authorities in Bucharest. The three delegations will return to Romania in January, should the country have a new Government by then.

Romania’s current problem is the 2010 budget, which hasn’t been approved yet. The request of the funding bodies is that the budget is voted in due time, meaning December 2009, preferably before the International Monetary Fund executive managers’ board meeting.

According to Tanasescu, this imposes a very tight schedule, but the document with significance for Romania could be approved by the Parliament in due course. Should this fail, the authorities and the funding institutions will continue to negotiate and a new delegation will return to Romania in January at the soonest to settle on the way to implement the agreed measures.