September deadline for four-year plans
September 20 will most likely be the day on which the member-states of the European Union will submit their first four-year budgetary-structural plans, based on the rules of the new Stability Pact.
It will have been preceded, probably in June, by the determination of the fiscal path – that is the objectives regarding the upper limit of the increase of net primary expenses in the same four-year period – for each member-state by the European Commission.
The new rules were agreed just two weeks ago between the Council and the European Parliament and will apply from 2025, so the four-year programs will cover the period 2025-2028. They will concern both the fiscal goals and the reforms that serve them, since the new approach of the pact is more holistic, but also more flexible, compared to the current one, which was suspended due to the pandemic in 2020 with a general escape clause and apparently will not come back into force, even though the clause has formally been lifted this year.
Besides, the European Commission has already issued guidelines this year with a measure of the increase in net primary costs, which will be implemented with the new pact. For Greece the limit is 2.6%.
A foretaste of the fiscal-structural program of Greece will be given by the Ministry of National Economy and Finance with the medium-term program, which was launched last week with the circular by Deputy Minister Thanos Petralias to the ministries and agencies.
The deadline for submitting the relevant forecasts of the agencies is March 11.
The submission of the medium-term program up to now roughly coincided with the Stability Program, which the government submits every April to the Commission. This time, the Greek medium-term program will be far ahead of the European fiscal-structural one, which will almost coincide with the 2025 draft budget.
The circular foresees an impressive increase in investment by 2026, starting with 12.1 billion euros this year, €13.5 billion in 2025 and €15 billion in 2026, with a decline in 2027 and 2028, due to the expiry of the Recovery Fund.
