By Chrysostomos Tsoufis

The government is obliged to submit a second supplementary budget to deal with part of the costs “caused” by the bad weather Daniel. The information of speaks of an amount of €500-600m and its deposit is a matter of days – not months and hours – as commented by an official of the Ministry of Finance. A second supplementary budget, which comes just 2 months after the first amounting to €700m, which was intended to cover costs related to local elections, health and measures such as the extension of the market pass and the announcement of the youth pass.

With the money from the second supplementary budget, the reserve of €1 billion for natural disasters already foreseen in the state budget and the €300 million of the Relief Fund from Public Investments Program, in the government they feel relatively “safe” that they will be able to cover the first costs of a disaster, the size of which cannot yet be assessed as the work of the census levels continues. However, the Ministry of Finance does not share the estimate of the president of SEVE that the size of the disaster will reach €6 billion.

All this to “get the year out” and until the… cavalry comes from Brussels as the vast majority of the resources that the EU can allocate should be expected in 2024. How soon depends on the decisions of the European Council as an official of the Ministry of Finance told skai.gr. At the meeting of the government echelon led by Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis with the staff of Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, it was found that there is a willingness to help Greece, there are resources but the European ship is “slow moving”.

Based on the first estimates, by the end of the year they could possibly come to Greece:

-About €250 million from the NSRF reserves. This is also the so-called fresh money, resources that we would lose but now Brussels will allocate them in our favor.

-Some money to farmers from the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development

– Advances

An additional €2 billion comes from redistribution of funds. Money that we could not use for the purposes we want but now we are allowed to. According to the announcement of the Maximos Palace, Greece in order to facilitate the absorption of funds:

-Revision of the Recovery Fund will be carried out and will include €500m worth of infrastructure restoration projects

– Will seek through the new NSRF 2021-2027 with a redistribution of expenses of €1.5 billion

-After the final recording of the damages, the country will request additional money from the agricultural reserve and the European Solidarity Fund, from which up to an additional €400m could come

Of course, all this has “collateral” effects. The Greek government may have written in the budget a primary surplus target of 0.7% for this year, but in the Stability Program it spoke of 1.1%, wanting to surprise positively. We are now returning to the original target of 0.7% ( Of course we won’t say no if something better comes along.

In addition, it “lightens” even more the already “light” basket of the prime minister in the TIF with the information saying that even the 2 basic measures that Kyriakos Mitsotakis would announce are being reviewed from scratch. The extension of the market pass until the end of the year and the personal difference allowance for pensioners who will not see increases from the New Year.