Brussels, 27/09/2005 (Agence Europe) - Hans Eichel, Germany's Finance Minister, challenges the analysis made by Eurostat of his country's 2005 budgetary situation. “We do not accept Eurostat's calculations as final but only as the expression of an opinion”, a spokesperson said on Monday cited by The Financial Times Deutschland in its Tuesday edition. Hans Eichel recently notified a budgetary deficit close to 3.7% for the current year but the European Statistical Office is said to put the figure closer to 3.9% or 4%. The German government, which has carried out a securitisation operation on future contributions linked to the pension schemes of postal employees, said the future contributions could be recorded as receipts and serve to reduce the deficit of the current year. Announced in 2004 for the current year, this project has always seemed suspect to Eurostat which did not adopt a final stance until the beginning of September. According to the Eurostat calculations, the operation cannot contribute to reducing the deficit, but must be classed as a debt. Amounting to EUR 5.5 billion, the operation represents nearly 0.3 percentage points of deficit more for 2005, Eurostat circles say. On Monday, the spokesperson for Commissioner Almunia had confirmed that the follow-up to be given to the excessive deficit procedure against Germany and France would be decided after examination of the Commission's autumn economic forecasts, during the second half of November.