High primary surpluses, lower deficits and debt, restraint of public expenditure but also interventions amounting to 1.1 billion euros will be included in the final draft of the 2025 Budget which will be submitted to the Parliament on Wednesday.
“The final details are determined these days,” with information indicating that the final text will have differences in relation to the European Commission’s estimates for the course of the Greek economy as reflected in Friday’s Autumn Forecasts.
More specifically, it is predicted that the primary surplus will be higher than the initial estimates. The public debt, as a percentage of GDP, will fluctuate at slightly higher levels, after the integration of the deferred interest amounting to 12.4 billion euros. However, the effects are mitigated due to the continuation of the growth path of the Greek economy with a rate of more than 2% both this year and next year.
According to sources, the state budget of 2025 will include the following estimates:
- Growth rate of 2.2% for this year and 2.3% in 2025, unchanged from the target.
- Primary surplus of 2.5% of GDP in 2024 and 2.4% the following year.
- Significant reduction of the fiscal deficit to 0.7% of GDP this year and 0.6% of GDP in 2025. According to the original forecast in the draft budget, the deficit would fall to 1% in 2024 and 0.6% next year.
- Inflation at 2.7% this year and 2.4% in 2025 (the draft budget predicted a drop to 2.1% next year).
- Public debt at 154% of GDP this year and a further decline to 147.5% of GDP in 2025. It is noted that after Eurostat’s announcements on October 18, public debt in 2023 had reached 163.9% of GDP.
- Primary spending growth of 2.6% this year and 3.6% in 2025.
The final text of the budget will also include a series of interventions totaling 1.1 billion euros.
