Greece’s obligation to draw up and submit a Medium-Term Program 2024-2027 along with the fiscal rules returns this year. It is essentially a four-year plan with growth and primary surpluses, which should be tabled by the spring as usual, but it is not known how much the date will be affected by the upcoming elections

According to a circular recently sent by the Deputy Minister of Finance Theodoros Skylakakis, the Medium Term plan will foresee growth at an average annual rate of 4.8% from 2023 to 2027, with a parallel decline in inflation to 2% from 2024. However, it is worth noting that the size of GDP growth is expressed in current prices (including inflation) and not in constant prices.

As for the 2023-2027 revenue and expenditure trajectory of supervised entities, the data should be adjusted to incorporate the 2023-2027 projections. For this purpose, the Deputy Minister of Finance lists the provisional macroeconomic forecasts for the preparation of the revenue and expenditure estimates.

In the age of investment

According to the forecast, the economy’s growth rate in current prices will reach 6.6% in 2023 (the government expects close to 2% in constant prices), 5.9% in 2024, 4.9% in 2025 , to 4.1% in 2026 and will decline significantly to 2.7% in 2027, when the Recovery and Resilience Fund will now be completed.

Mr. Skylakakis emphasizes that “from the year 2024, the “general escape clause” of the Stability and Growth Pact that allowed the temporary deviation from the fiscal rules in the previous years 2020-2023 will not be in force. Therefore, our country, like the rest of the EU member countries, will recommit to the implementation of fiscal rules and the achievement of specific fiscal goals for the period 2024-2027″.

Primary surpluses

The basic scenario of the Medium-term Fiscal Strategy Program foresees the achievement of primary surpluses “without additional fiscal interventions and new policies, beyond those already instituted to date”.

However, the current economic climate leads to capture any new data that could create changes in fiscal targets, such as the reduction of the target of primary surpluses to 2% from 2.2% of GDP.

The Medium-Term Program sets specific goals, schedules and implementation indicators in the effort to rationalize and control expenses and achieve the respective fiscal goals.

At the same time, it sets the upper spending limits for the entire period for the ministries, as well as the balance targets for the other bodies of the General Government.

Public investment and interest

Interest payments will reach 5.85 billion euros this year, rising to 6.2 billion euros in 2024 and 2025, 6.3 billion in 2026 and 6.45 billion in 2027. indirectly recording the expansion of the Greek bond market.

At the same time, the employee benefits fund from 13.68 billion expected to reach this year, is reduced to 13.4 billion euros in 2024 and then to 13.3 billion euros for the years from 2025 to 2027, despite the fact that Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis announced a new salary scale

The public investment program, after peaking at 8.3 billion euros for this year, declines to 8 billion in 2024 and to 7.8 billion euros for the years from 2025 to 2027. The absorptions from the Fund of Recovery and Resilience, will reach 3.65 billion euros for this year, 3.46 billion euros in 2024, 3.64 billion euros in 2025 and the last 3.46 billion euros will be absorbed until the middle of 2026.