Fiscal improvement is unsustainable (May 08)

The public finances of every country in the region have strengthened considerably over the past few years. But recent developments suggest that this trend may not last for long. Rapid receipts growth across much of Central Europe has been largely cyclical and looks likely to fade over the next year or so. Meanwhile, Turkey’s new medium-term fiscal plan envisages smaller primary surpluses as infrastructure spending increases. Finally, Russia’s public finances remain extremely vulnerable to a drop in the price of oil – if prices dip below $50pb the budget will slip from surplus to deficit.