With a focus on the “ceiling” on primary expenditures, as Brussels mandates, the new budget. At General Accounting Office of the State agencies and ministries sent their proposals with the estimates regarding expenses and income for the current year and 2025, and after the fifteenth of August, the relevant meetings at the Ministry of National Economy and Finance are expected to intensify.

According to his new rules Stability Pactthe main tool for fiscal discipline is primary expenditure, which will no longer be able to rise above the 3% limit. That is, Greece will not be able to exceed the limit of 115 billion euros next year, from approximately 111.6 billion euros this year. In this suffocating framework, all social policy measures should “fit”, from tax reliefs and benefits, to new recruitments in the State and increases in pensions.

At the same time, the country should fulfill its primary surplus target of 2.1% GDPwhile, with the data to date, a growth of around 2.6%, a de-escalation of inflation to 2% and a further reduction of public debt, to 146.3% of GDP in 2025 from 152.7% of GDP this year, are predicted.

However, in new budget new interventions and reliefs totaling approximately 880 million euros will be included, as the government has committed.

It will be the new increase of pensions according to the rise in GDP and inflation (cost around 400 million euros), the 0.5% reduction in insurance contributions (cost 225 million euros), the abolition of the pretension fee (cost 120 million euros), the permanentization of the return of the tax on agricultural oil with the new method (estimated cost of approximately 100 million euros), the extension of the suspension of VAT on new buildings (cost of 20 million euros) and the increase of the student housing allowance (cost of 15 million euro).

At the same time, at Christmas it is expected that there will be allowance to pensioners with a personal difference, which will be covered by the taxation of the refineries’ surplus profits at a rate of 33%, a fund estimated at 300 million euros. Based on the pensioner support model implemented last year, the allowance will range from 100 euros to 250 euros for pensioners with a personal difference and the sum of main and supplementary pensions up to 1,600 euros per month, and will cover around 770,000 pensioners.

It is noted that the goal of the government agents is to provide an additional allowance for Christmas to approximately 230,000 long-term unemployedpeople with disabilities and other vulnerable citizens. Essentially, this will be the last emergency measure that the government will be able to give, after the “stop” that enters from 2025 with Stability Program. The final decisions on the amount of the aid, the criteria and the beneficiaries, will be taken at the beginning of September, when there will be a secure picture of the exact budgetary margins, according to the execution of this year’s budget and the level of development.

September, moreover, will be his month as well Medium-term Programto be submitted to European Commission after negotiations with Brussels, and which, according to economic factors, should also take into account any geopolitical developments in Middle East and their impact on energy prices.