EU countries are required to maintain predetermined deficit limits and are thus incentivized to select any instrument within their disposal to remain within the deficit limitation. This paper argues that accounting discretion might be used by countries in managing some adjustments made when translating data from Governmental Accounting (GA) into National Accounts (NA) in order to window-dress their final deficit/surplus reported to EUROSTAT. Assuming that managing the final deficit is every country’s aim, the empirical study evidences certain circumstances that might facilitate the use of GA-NA ‘adjustments discretion’. Special attention must be given to these conditions by EU authorities, to assure that reported deficits are reliable enough

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udgetary reporting,National Accounts,deficit/surplus,adjustments management