Distance with creditors is closing
The difference between the estimates of the government and the eurozone on Greece’s fiscal gap in 2020 is constantly shrinking, with government sources now speaking of a difference amounting to just 350 million euros, down from 1 billion euros when the mission chiefs concluded their visit to Greece last month.
Sources from both the government and the creditors agree the negotiations are proceeding smoothly and that the decreasing distance will eventually be eliminated.
On Thursday and Friday Finance Minister Christos Staikouras will meet in Luxembourg with a number of European officials, including European Stability Mechanism chief Klaus Regling and European Commission Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis, in the context of the Eurogroup and ECOFIN meetings.
Kathimerini understands that the Commission originally thought the 2020 tax cuts would burden the budget by 0.55 percent of gross domestic product and add 0.3 percentage points to growth.
The Finance Ministry considers the tax cuts to be fiscally neutral, boosting growth by 0.5 percentage points to 2.8 percent, while baseline scenario data are constantly improving, such as value-added tax revenues thanks to the hike in electricity rates.
