By Chrysostomos Tsoufis

He showed for a while that he is on the right track and that “it cleans“, but as a genuine “addicted» he rolled back into his bad habit.

The Greek State it has learned to produce fez and cannot get rid of them.

The figures announced by the Ministry of Finance for June show that also in June, for 6 consecutive months that is, the State continued to owe more than €2 billion – although in the last quarter there is a tendency to decrease – despite the commitments and promises to Brussels that he will …comply.

It is characteristic that after painstaking efforts, the State funds for purchase and suppliers had decreased in December 2020 to €1.2 billion, but from then on the descent began again.

The largest “patient» are the hospitals whose debts actually increased in June by €15m compared to May and reached €1.273m.

In other words, they are currently 4 times higher than the low of €294m that was recorded in December 2018.

And all this despite the fact that Brussels has already rung the alarm since April with a letter of warning attributing to the country a faulty application of the rules established by the Community directive on late payments.

The Commission observes that there is no improvement in excessive payment delays on the part of public and military hospitals.

In addition, it expresses its strong concern about the practice followed by the Greek government according to which hospitals pay their debts immediately only if their suppliers waive their rights to interest and compensation but legal action.

According to Europe, this practice violates Union rules on late payments in commercial transactions as interpreted by the European Supreme Court.

The debts of other legal entities of the State also show an increase of €16 million, while the debts of insurance funds and local governments show a slight decrease.

The €463m of pending tax refunds must be added to the State’s debts

In the Medium-term Program that the Greek Government sent to the Commission, it repeats for the umpteenth time its commitment to minimize net overdue debts and to put an end to the creation of new ones.