**Greek primary surplus: Why international organisations systematically underestimate results**
While the budget statement for 2025 is approaching, the phenomenon of continuous upward revisions is repeated. The primary surplus originally estimated at 2.5% of GDP ends up reaching 5%. The European Commission, the IMF and the OECD start with more optimistic forecasts from Athens, but ultimately fall short of reality. The causes: additional revenue from the fight against tax evasion (3 billion euros in 2024), savings of expenditure and policy strategy to avoid excessive expectations.
Analyticalally:
By Tasos Dasopoulos
While we are on the countdown for the budget communication for 2025, there are some who wonder how surprised Greece will be this year. How is it possible, that a size such as the primary surplus, which is monitored on a monthly basis, should be estimated at the beginning of a year at 2.5% of GDP and at the end of the year to reach twice as high, reaching 5% of GDP.
The first to be surprised – but not to manifest it – by the revisions of the data are the international organizations (the European Commission, the International Monetary Fund, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) which make forecasts more optimistic than those of Athens, following the continuous revisions up to the final result to have made their own predictions conservative.
Different provisions
In particular, the European Commission, which is the institution with the greatest proximity to the Greek economy, provided at the beginning of 2025 a primary surplus of more than 3% of GDP for the previous year, when the Ministry of Foreign Affairs provided for a surplus of 2.5% of GDP to then review at the beginning of 2026 at 2.8% of GDP, 3.2% of GDP at the revised multiannual programme 2024-2028 and at the end at 3.7% of GDP.
Similarly, the IMF launched its forecasts for 2025 with a forecast for a primary surplus just below 3% of GDP. Today, it predicts that the surplus will reach 4.4% of GDP. The OECD, a little more realistic as an Agency makes a forecast marginally increased than that of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (to 2.8% of GDP) in which it insists until such data as we expect next Wednesday to correct its forecasts accountancy.
The causes of continued revisions
Continued revisions of the financial data spark no criticism from our partners within the EU for the simple reason that all of them are revisions for the better.
The main reason that every year we have since spring a continuous revision of the forecasts for budgetary data lies in tax revenue and expenditure.
The effort to combat tax evasion, which began in 2024 with a package of measures, paid from 3 billion euros additional revenue to public funds. The additional resources from the reduction of tax evasion were not attached as a provision, either in 2024 or 2025. However, their contribution to public funds is illustrated by the achievement of budgetary and primary surpluses each year. As a distinct quantity, in order to monitor the results of all effort, only accountancy is recorded.
A second element, which is also recorded in the results only accountancy, is the saving of public expenditure through the ongoing review conducted by the Ministry of Agriculture. The amount of expenditure that will not eventually be implemented is not fixed for each year. Consequently, this "source" primary surplus is not recorded in the forecasts of the annual budgets, changing many of the key budgetary figures once closed every year.
A third reason, more political, is that if a huge surplus were announced every year from the beginning and due to circumstances they were not achieved, the government would have political damage. Also, a very large surplus would cultivate excessive expectations – which could be fulfilled – due to the new budgetary rules that many people understand how they operate.
