Financiarul

President of the opposition National Liberal Party (PNL) Crin Antonescu said after meeting with a visiting International Monetary Fund delegation on Thursday that the Liberals will take responsibility – should it depend on them – for the fast approval of the 2010 budget plan, of the unified public wage law and the pensions law.

‘If it depends on us that this budget be assumed fast, that these laws be put forward to debate and corrected, then from this viewpoint we can take responsibility’, Antonescu said.
He explained that the 2010 budget plan, alongside a 5.9 percent budget deficit and the adoption of the unified public wage law, the pensions law and the fiscal responsibility law is a fundamental requirement for Romania to continue to get the IMF money.

Antonescu stressed that neither the European Commission nor the World Bank can provide Romania money due to ‘technical procedures’, so that it is only the IMF that can further allot Romania money in December.
‘We had a first meeting with the members of the IMF mission, with the delegation of the European Commission and of the World Bank. They communicated us their position, a blunt one.

Thus, we either solve by mid-December several issues they agreed with the former Government – namely a certain budget, a budget plan with 5.9 percent deficit, the adoption of the pensions law, the fiscal responsibility law and the unified wage law – or they come back in January, after the political situation in Romania is supposed to have settled. However, under the current conditions neither the IMF, that could disburse a tranche now, nor the other two institutions will give Romania money’, Antonescu said.

He explained the Liberals are willing to continue the talks, but he added that differing views had taken shape between the IMF representatives and the PNL officials with respect to the pensions law.

Antonescu pointed out that Romania’s failure to meet the requirements set in the IMF loan agreement is not the Liberals’ fault. ‘The Government that concluded the agreement with the IMF, that is responsible for the path it agreed with the Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the European Commission was not able to meet these obligations.
We are not to blame for not having a Government at this moment that should have the capacity of putting forward a budget plan. It is the responsibility of President Traian Basescu, who refused the formation of a perfectly legitimate Government, capable of resolving the situation’, Antonescu said.