The European Commission will officially announce on May 7 that Greece fulfills all the prerequisites for exiting the regime of fiscal supervision which it has been under for two years, Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis said after meeting with Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Joaquin Almunia in Brussels yesterday. Karamanlis told Almunia that Greece will persist with tidying up its public finances even after the end of the supervision, and continue with reforms and structural changes where needed. Karamanlis and Economy Minister Giorgos Alogoskoufis heard that Greece meets the prerequisites for exiting supervision – mainly a public deficit of below 3 percent of GDP – under both the old and new figures of GDP, after a proposed 25 percent upward revision now pending approval by Eurostat. Almunia said the end of supervision, which is to be formally endorsed by Ecofin in June or July, will be based on the old figures.

BELGRADE – Serbia’s feuding politicians need to clarify their stance on key economic issues urgently to ensure macroeconomic stability, the central bank governor said yesterday. Serbia still has no new government and no 2007 budget, seven weeks after an inconclusive election that led into protracted coalition talks. The outgoing cabinet left behind a $10 billion draft budget, but economists say spending must be cut by some $500 million. “It will be crucial to know if a new government will consider the... necessary synchronization of fiscal and monetary policies so as to maintain macroeconomic stability or if it will automatically pick up where the previous government left off,” central bank Governor Radovan Jelasic told a business forum. (Reuters)

Turkey’s current account deficit was $2.248 billion in January, the central bank said yesterday, growing slightly from last year. Turkey’s current account deficit is proportionally one of the largest in emerging markets, which makes Turkish assets particularly vulnerable to changes in global investors’ risk appetite. A large oil bill is a factor swelling the deficit. But the gap is expected to grow less this year, helped by sharp increases in interest rates last year which cut into demand for foreign goods. (Reuters)

Romania’s economy grew a robust 7.7 percent last year, the country’s last outside the European Union, up from 4.1 percent in 2005, propped up by strong consumption and investment, official data showed yesterday. (Reuters)