* Pension move to help cut 2011 budget deficit, debt/GDP
* Still no details on spending cuts or structural reform
* Financing, sustainability risks to rise from 2013-analysts
By Krisztina Than
BUDAPEST, Nov 2 (Reuters) - Hungary has turned its back on austerity and is gambling on economic growth to get its finances back in order, but analysts say its policies could backfire in a couple of years.
While governments across Europe have slashed spending to reduce budget shortfalls, Hungary's centre-right Fidesz government plans to divert assets in private pension funds back into state coffers to meet its deficit target next year.
It has also imposed big temporary windfall taxes on its banking, retail, energy and telecoms sectors.
After these taxes expire in 2012, Hungary -- which only two years ago needed a massive IMF/EU rescue package to save it from financial meltdown -- is pinning everything on rising exports and tax cuts to fuel rapid economic growth from 2013.
But analysts say that while its plans, which the IMF has dubbed "bold but risky", may help massage its deficit down in 2011, they could also lead to long-term sustainability risks.
"From the longer term perspective, the government is just rescheduling the repayment of its debt, and this operation resembles liability management, not debt reduction," Goldman Sachs said in a note on the budget plans.
Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who came to fame in 1989 when he urged Hungarians to elect a government that would send occupying Russian troops home, has never shied away from bold moves.
With a two-thirds majority in parliament, his Fidesz party can rewrite any law it wants, and last week it proposed legislation to strip the nation's top court of the right to review bills on budget issues. That would remove the last obstacle to Fidesz' plans for boosting growth.
The government also plans to rechannel billions of dollars from private pension funds to state coffers next year, plugging a hole in the state pension fund and giving it room to cut income taxes sharply -- but also creating serious future fiscal sustainability risks.
"These flows do not improve the net worth of the government sector, as the new inflows of pension contributions are accompanied by a new inflow of liabilities to future pensioners," CSFB analysts said in a note.
They added that without the changes to the pension system, Hungary's deficit would deteriorate in 2011 compared with 2010.
Hungary has one of the highest debt to GDP ratios in central Europe at slightly above 80 percent.
Its pension fund asset-grab follows the EU's refusal earlier this year to let the country loosen its deficit targets or take into account the cost of pension reform when calculating its deficit and debt numbers.
That would have given Fidesz room to implement tax cuts, a key plank of its campaign before it took power in April.
The pension move, which pension funds have said amounts to nationalisation, combined with short-term windfall taxes will ensure that the deficit falls to 2.94 percent of GDP next year -- below the 3 percent required by the EU -- from 3.8 percent this year.
The assets taken over from private pension funds in particular will help reduce the deficit next year and will also cut its debt by several percentage points of GDP.
"Assuming, as the government does, that 90 percent of participants leave (private pension funds), this could result in 7.4 percent of GDP available for debt reduction," Goldman Sachs said in its note.
Rating agencies Moody's and S&P -- which said in July that they might downgrade Hungary's sovereign rating if the government does not present credible fiscal plans -- have yet to give their views on the 2011 budget and recent measures.
GROWTH HOPES
Uncertainties will grow beyond 2012, when Hungary's financing needs rise due to redemptions and the repayment of the emergency loans it secured from international lenders in 2008.
Gillian Edgeworth at Unicredit said that the impact of the pension plans was negative for bonds in the mid-term, partly due to lower domestic demand from pension funds, while Hungary's long-term financing risks have increased.
"Although the measures will undoubtedly improve the near-term deficit outlook and effectively ensure that the 2010 and 2011 deficit targets are met... there are significant long-term risks as the government has so far failed to present meaningful reductions on the expenditure side," Edgeworth said.
"In order to compensate for this the government will need to adjust its expenditures and/or hope for a significant acceleration of GDP growth. Local estimates put this required growth rate in the range of 5-6 percent."
The Economy Ministry projects that GDP growth could pick up to 5 percent by 2013, and 5.2 percent in 2014.
That could be tough to achieve, however. Hungary's economy is expected to grow about 1 percent this year and analysts project 2.6 percent growth for next year.
While the windfall taxes on banks and some companies are seen as a short-term negative for investor sentiment and growth, the impact of income tax cuts and tax breaks for families on household consumption is hard to estimate.
The government's plans also hinge on a rapid rise in exports to western Europe, mainly Germany, and do not allow for any break in the global recovery.
"Without specific moves to reduce the structural deficit, government plans for fiscal consolidation are ultimately unlikely to result in a lasting reduction in the risk premia and long-term rates," Goldman Sachs analyst Magdalena Polan said. (Writing by Krisztina Than; Editing by Hugh Lawson)