Greek budget deficit widens
Greece’s budget deficit widened last year as an austerity-fuelled recession cancelled out much of the extra revenues the government was hoping to raise through emergency taxes, data showed on Thursday.
The central government budget gap widened 0.8 percent year-on-year to 21.64 billion euros ($27.45 billion) last year, according to figures from the finance ministry.
The data refers to the state budget deficit, which excludes local authorities and social security spending. They do not coincide with the general government shortfall, the benchmark for the EU’s assessment of Greece’s economic policy program. [Reuters]
