KIEV, Dec. 21 – Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko changed plans Monday and sought to dramatically accelerate the approval of the 2010 budget in Parliament as talks stumbled with the International Monetary Fund over resumption of lending.

The government has been seeking to urgently borrow at least $2 billion from the IMF before the end of the year to bridge a widening budget gap.

But the failure to approve the budget before the end of the year appears to be one of the main obstacles on the way of the resumed lending from the IMF.

“Parliament’s return towards debating the government’s draft 2010 budget will provide an opportunity to approve the budget this week,” Petro Krupko, the minister without portfolio, said Monday.

This is a major turnaround in the government’s position since December 16, when Tymoshenko had admitted that the 2010 budget will not be approved until after the presidential election.

The change comes as Tymoshenko’s foreign policy chief, Deputy Prime Minister Hryhoriy Nemyria, and two senior finance ministry officials have been holding talks with IMF leaders in Washington December 17 and December 18. The talks failed to make serious progress.

The first round of the presidential election will take place on January 17, 2010, but the runoff vote, which will most likely be required, is scheduled on February 7, 2010.

Some lawmakers said the 2010 will probably be approved in April 2010 after the new president is inaugurated as time will be needed to make changes to the budget and to work with Parliament for its approval.

Tymoshenko, who runs as one of the candidates, has been seeking to dramatically increase powers of the president through amendments to the constitution.

Tymoshenko runs a minority government that does not have support of the majority of lawmakers in Parliament.

But on several occasions over the past two years, the Communist Party, a small opposition group, has helped Tymoshenko to approve crucial legislation that she has been pushing for.

The Ukrainian law requires the budget for next year be approved before the end of the previous year as the country’s fiscal year coincides with the calendar year.

The failure to approve the 2010 budget before the end of December means the government will be restricted from spending more than 1/12 of the country’s overall spending in 2009 each month next year.

President Viktor Yushchenko, who has opposed the Tymoshenko economic policy for the past two years, said the failure to approve the budget poses not only economic threat, but also political risk.

The political risk include that the Tymoshenko government will be in position to manually increase spending on certain groups, such as teachers, that will play a crucial roles in vote counting in territorial electoral commissions.

That may benefit Tymoshenko among other candidates running for the presidency, Iryna Vannikova, Yushcheko’s spokeswoman, said. (tl/ez)