Romanian Ctrl Bk Calls On Government To Pay Its Debts

„The arrears issue must be solved (…). The state must give a positive example on how to pay the debts on time,” Isarescu said in a speech at the Babes-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca, northwestern Romania.

Not paying one’s debts has become a „national sport,” Isarescu added.

Romania hasn’t met the end-September performance criteria in the sector of general government arrears and it will ask the International Monetary Fund for a new waiver of non-observance, IMF mission chief Jeffrey Franks said in October.

It would be the sixth waiver of non-observance in the arrears sector since Romania signed a EUR13 billion loan agreement with the IMF in 2009.

End-June, Romanian government arrears stood at 2 billion lei (EUR1=RON4.2883), double the half-year target agreed with the IMF.

The country must bring its government arrears down to RON480 million by year-end and eliminate them altogether by the end of the IMF program in 2011.