Austrian Finance Minister Hans Joerg Schelling is annoyed that Brussels has singled out his budget for criticism, even though other euro zone countries are allowed to run much bigger deficits, he was quoted saying in an interview on Sunday.
Austria is counting on an exemption for the cost of providing for asylum seekers to keep its structural deficit, adjusted for fluctuations in growth and stripping out some one-off items, within an EU limit of roughly 0.5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP).
Even so, analysts have doubted it will meet that target, and the European Commission last month named it among four countries that it said were at risk of breaking EU budget rules.
"How does the Commission assess budgets? This really annoys me," Schelling was quoted as saying by newspaper Die Presse.
Under the EU Stability and Growth Pact, countries are allowed to stray from their deficit targets in certain cases, such as when they are implementing major structural reforms.
"France, for example, will have a Maastricht (nominal) deficit of roughly 3.4 percent - it could also be 4 percent, as things look at the moment - and a structural deficit of 2.5 percent," Schelling was quoted as saying.
"Now the Commission says: France is largely complying with the stability pact. How can that be?"
Paris is subject to EU disciplinary measures called the excessive deficit procedure. If it badly misses budget consolidation targets, the procedure could be stepped up and end in a fine, though Commission Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis has said that will not happen because of a renewed focus on nominal deficits rather than structural ones.
Austria expects its nominal budget deficit to be 1.4 percent of GDP next year, well within an EU limit of 3 percent.
"The Commission said: the expected structural deficit is 2.4 (percent). The French say it is 2.5 percent, and that's OK," Schelling said. "I'm struggling with 0.5 percent and have to explain myself because the Commission is using other assumptions."
The Commission had, however, agreed that refugee costs could be stripped out of Austria's budget, he said, adding that about half the country's asylum applications would be approved.
"The Netherlands have a structural deficit of 1.4 percent and are, according to the Commission, fully complying with the (stability) pact," he said, adding that that was because the country had stayed within bounds in recent years and was found to be in different circumstances now.
"How am I supposed to explain that at home?" Schelling said.
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