The heads of the Iranian government’s executive, legislative and judicial branches − President Hassan Rouhani, Majles Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, and Ebrahim Raeesi - have reached agreement on a process for settling a budget for the new Iranian year beginning March 21.

Rouhani announced the agreement on Monday [December 28] at the end of a three-way meeting, hours after the parliament’s budget committee said the required parliamentary vote on the draft budget presented by Rouhani would be postponed until the president agreed to amendments.

With its principlist majority critical of the centrist Rouhani, parliament has argued the proposed budget is unrealistic in over-estimating oil exports and requiring too much borrowing, which would fuel inflation. On Sunday, Ghalibaf warned that without changes, parliament would approve a budget only for the first three months of the year.

Rouhani said Monday’s meeting had “discussed cooperation between the administration and the Majles” and reached agreement on making “possible corrections…together.” Ghalibaf said efforts would be made in coordination with the administration and the Planning and Budget Organization “to come up with a budget bill that would not lead to further inflation.” Raeesi also stressed that the budget bill would move forward based on “collaboration between the Majles and the administration.”

Iran International TV’s Iran analyst Morad Vaisi said despite “a stage-managed show of unity” the three officials still had “serious differences…on the topics they touched upon, that is the budget, the vaccines and the sanctions.”

In his remarks following the meeting, Rouhani said that arguments over whether Iran should import Covid-19 vaccines or make its own were “neither constructive nor useful,” and that Iran would use a combination.

In recent days, various comments have been made by officials, including the head of Iran’s Red Crescent Society, Karim Hemmati, about purchasing vaccines from the United States and China. Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli, the interior minister, has said Iran will import vaccines from China, while other officials have spoken of co-production with Russia.

Rouhani said he, Ghalibaf and Raeesi had expressed similar views at Monday’s meeting on international sanctions. Following the election of US President-elect Joe Biden, who made a campaign promise to revive Iran’s 2015 deal with world powers abandoned by President Donald Trump, Rouhani has stressed Iran’s willingness to return to the agreement, which removed many international sanctions in return for limits on Iran’s atomic program.

At the same time, there have been reports than Iran has increased its oil exports despite existing US sanctions introduced as part of Trump’s ‘maximum pressure’ designed to cut Iran’s crude exports to zero. Estimates for November from energy monitoring firms put Iranian exports between 450,000 barrels a day and 1.2 million, up from 220,000-480,000 earlier in the year. Talk from Ali Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader, of “nullifying” sanctions maybe have heartened hardliners who have always opposed the 2015 deal and have no wish to revive it. Parliament has passed legislation requiring that Iran boost uranium enrichment and reduce access for international nuclear inspectors if sanctions are not removed.