By Chrysostomos Tsoufis

Only 25 days remain before the deadline for joining the debt settlementsbut already at the Ministry of Labor they have given up their hopes for “stillborn” – as the market characterized them when they were first presented in the spring – interventions and according to Stadium officials, the possibility of a new regulation is already on the table.

The… size of the meager response of taxpayers and insured persons to the arrangements of debts to tax authorities and insurance funds respectively is shown by the fact that only 1 out of 10 who have the right has joined so far. Specifically and with regard to tax debts:

– In the new arrangement of 36-72 installments, only 9,800 VATS have been included and the debt that has been settled amounts to €199 million.
-23,000 TINs have revived the regulation of 72 or 120 installments and the total debts that have been settled amount to €318 million. The potential beneficiaries of the revival of lost arrangements amount according to the Ministry of Finance to about 200,000.

Correspondingly disappointing are the numbers in EFKAnot because the debtors are not interested but because the cutters and conditions are many and the vast majority of them are excluded.

All the professional and commercial associations, in the first meetings they had with both Kostis Hatzidakis and Adonis Georgiadis, asked for a more favorable treatment.

The finance and labor ministers have already discussed the issue and the idea of ​​a joint debt settlement is beginning to mature, according to government officials. AADE and EFKA.

Of course, the issue must be discussed with Brussels, which, however, gets “blisters” even when hearing the phrase “debt settlement”. In its previous reports, the Commission issued a yellow card for the arrangements that the previous government finally made and it must be considered certain that there will be a reaction now, let alone that Mr. Hatzidakis and Georgiadis will seek more favorable terms.

Athens knows, of course, that a regulation of 120 or 240 installments requested by the market is not going to “pass”, but officials of the Ministry of Labor told that the goal of a new regulation “about 70 installments is feasible”.