Greece is going to request the exemption of defense spending – that is, the activation of the relevant escape clause – from the calculation of fiscal spending in the coming years.
The news was announced by the Minister of National Economy and Finance, Kyriakos Pierrakakis, speaking to ERTNews.
Pierrakakis stated that he would sign the relevant request, in order to create the necessary budgetary space to cover defense needs in the coming years.
“The expected increase from 2025 to 2026 amounts to approximately half a billion euros and concerns the following years as well. This is a very specific defense spending program that the government has presented,” the minister noted, clarifying that this amount – 500 million euros – will be excluded from the calculation based on the new fiscal spending rule in the 2026 budget.
New rules
Pierrakakis also underlined that the main message that must be understood by citizens is that the European Union now has new fiscal rules. “What have we learned? That we had to achieve high primary surpluses. This of course still applies. However, today we cannot manage these surpluses in the same way, that is, spend them annually. Why? Because now all European states have agreed on new rules regarding annual spending,” he added.
