New Finance Minister presses the PM to accept a higher budget deficit

The declaration comes as a surprise since the draft budget for 2006 prepared by the former Finance Minister Mirosław Gronicki envisaged a deficit of zł.32.57 billion and Prime Minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz on numerous occasion declared that his government wanted to decrease the figure to zł.30 billion. However, Lubińska stated that, "The Prime Minister wants zł.30 billion, but I have a slightly different opinion. I want to increase the expenditures on science and high technologies. A deficit of zł.31-32 billion is my personal request to the Prime Minister." Economists were surprised by this turn of events. "It was usually the Prime Minister that demanded the higher deficit and the Finance Minister that opposed it. Now we have a reverse situation," commented Ryszard Petru, the chief economist with Bank BPH. "It is a very unfortunate statement and it puts the new Finance Minister in a bad light on the financial markets," stated Janusz Jankowiak, the chief economist with BRE Bank. (Rzeczpospolita, p. B2; Gazeta Wyborcza, p. 23) E.B.