From July 2021 and its start Greek Resilience and Recovery Plan, Greece is the largest recipient of resources in terms of GDP (35.95 billion euros or more than 17% of GDP), while total community support amounts to 32% of GDP. When, the average in other European countries is 4.1% of GDP.

This was stated by the head of the Commission’s permanent delegation in Greece, Niovi Ringou, forewording the IOBE conference on the implementation of the Resilience and Recovery Plan for Greece. At the same time, he mentioned that the country is among the pioneers in terms of implementation, that to date approximately 15 billion euros have been given and that it is one of the six member states with three disbursements of resources. And he emphasized that it is important to continue implementing the plan as quickly as possible.

In the discussion panel that followed, moderated on behalf of IOBE by Professor Nikos Vetta, the Minister of State Akis Schertsos stated that the Plan draws on the experience from the debt crisis and is the most important use of Community resources for convergence. According to him, its logic goes beyond the absorption of resources and is transferred to providing greater added value.

As Mr. Skertsos said, if the Fund did not exist at the European level, Europe would be in recession and not stagnation and Greece would not have achieved these growth rates. As everyone is moving in an environment of high interest rates. The Fund added, with cheap liquid money it can support growth.

Specifically for Greece and regarding the reform leg, the Minister of State said that by the end of the program (in August 2026) Greece has 139 reform milestones and has already completed 52. Saying that “Greece is changing day by day ».

For his part, the Deputy Minister of National Economy and Finance, Nikos Papathanasis, said that the country is ready to submit the 4th request for disbursement of resources by the end of April and the 5th request towards the end of September or the beginning of October. Pointing out that more than 60% of the country’s expected growth is due to the Fund.

The deputy minister called the loan part very important, as, as he said, with the particularly low interest rates, it covers a significant part of the country’s investment gap. Saying, at the same time, that it is more than 11 billion euros in contracts and of these 4.7 billion euros in the loan part. And he concluded by pointing out that acceleration is needed, citing as an example the delays in the delivery of justice and the reform work in the public administration.