Three important pieces of news emerge from his conference call Eurogroup and his ECOFIN at Brussels: Eurogroup credit for Greek 2024 budget, approval of Greece’s revised Recovery and Resilience Plan. And it seems excluding defense spending from the excessive deficit calculation process.

Specifically, at Eurogroup meetingwhich took place on Thursday 7/12, the Budget Plans of the euro area member states for 2024 were approvedwith the Greece to be one of the 7 countries whose Budget was judged to be fully aligned with Eurozone policy guidelines. Furthermore, the debate on the development of European capital markets continued, with the participation of G.G. of the OECD Matias Korman, who in his intervention made special reference to Greece’s new solvency framework as a “model” and “international good practice”.

At the ECOFIN meeting today, the revised Recovery and Resilience Plans of 13 countries including Greece were approvedwhich in this way will receive additional funding of €5.7 billion. The total budget of “Greece 2.0” now amounts to 36 billion euros by 2026. Economy Commissioner Paolo Gentiloni made positive references to inclusion among other actions and projects with an environmental nature, but also milestones through which reforms are promoted to deal with tax evasion.

In addition, negotiations continued on the new framework of fiscal rules to replace the existing Stability Pact, during which there was further convergence of diverging views on individual issues. Discussions will continue in the near future with the aim of reaching a final agreement. However, it seems that there is already a more general convergence of opinions regarding the need to exclude defense spending from the process of calculating excessive budget deficits.

The Minister of National Economy and Finance, Kostis Hatzidakis, said: “We had three very positive developments for our country: First, it was once again confirmed that Greece is one of the countries that are heading in the right direction, as the Draft Budget we submitted was approved by the Eurogroup without asterisks and footnotes. Secondly, the increasing the funds of the Recovery and Resilience Fund by 5.7 billion thus further enhancing the possibilities of beneficial interventions with a multiplier effect in the Greek economy. And even with positive reports about the nature of the programs and reforms promoted by the Greek government. Thirdly, progress has been made towards the formulation of a new Stability Pact that will simultaneously ensure fiscal discipline and economic growth, while it will take special care of countries with high defense expenditures. It seems that the constant request of the Greek governments to exclude defense spending from the excessive budget deficit calculation process is now gathering the consensus of the member states and this is very important news for Greece. However, our government, regardless of these positive developments, will continue to work seriously and methodicallycombining fiscal discipline with growth policies so that Greece capitalizes on and maximizes the significant progress achieved over the past four and a half years.”.

In the context of ECOFIN a decision was also taken to take over the Presidency of the European Investment Bank (EIB) by the Minister of Finance of Spain, Nadia Calvinho. Ms. Calvino will succeed outgoing president Werner Heuer from January 1, 2024.