By Tasos Dasopoulos
An excess of around 1% of GDP is expected to have the primary surplus of 2025, reaching 4.5% of GDP, compared with an official forecast for a surplus of 3.7% of GDP, Eurostat is expected to announce in a few days, along with the remaining financial data from last year.
In particular, on the basis of the data collected by the Ministry of Economic Affairs, the primary surplus last year reached 4.5% of GDP, compared with the official forecast for a surplus of 3.7% of GDP. The excess of 0.8% of the official forecast of the Ministry is mainly due to the attempt to combat tax evasion, which brought about around 2.2 billion euros tax revenues mainly from indirect taxes but also to better tax compliance expected by taxpayers. For the same reasons, the general (financial) result of the budget for 2025 was an surplus of 0.9% of GDP, compared with a forecast of a surplus of 0.7% of GDP.
The three revised official targets have been met by the IMF and the Bank of Greece. The IMF, in its latest report on Greece on the basis of Article IV, stressed that due to the overperformance of revenue, the primary surplus of 2025 reached 4.4% of GDP. In fact, it estimated that the primary surplus of 2026 would also reach 3.8% of GDP (against the official forecast of the Ministry for a surplus of 2.8% of GDP), as well as that Greece has the potential to achieve a primary surplus of 2.75% of GDP by 2030.
Financial space for reliefs
According to the Bank of Greece report, if part of the primary result is attributed to additional permanent revenues as a result of structural reforms to tackle tax evasion and/or to contain primary expenditure, as was done in 2024, net primary expenditure in 2025 will record a lower rate of increase than the 2026 budget estimates. This will create a budgetary margin for increased net primary expenditure over the coming years, under the constraints of the new financial framework.
Debt
Το χρέος της Γενικής Κυβέρνησης αναμένεται να ανακοινωθεί στο 145% του ΑΕΠ, περίπου 1% του ΑΕΠ μικρότερο από την επίσημη πρόβλεψη για χρέος 145,9% του ΑΕΠ. Η μείωση σε σχέση με το 2024, όταν το χρέος έφτασε στο τέλος του χρόνου το 154,2% του ΑΕΠ, έφτασε το 8,3% του ΑΕΠ και επιτεύχθηκε, παρά το γεγονός το χρέος επιβαρύνθηκε εκτός από το ετήσιο δανεικό πρόγραμμα (η Ελλάδα άντλησε από τις αγορές 7,7 δισ. ευρώ) και από τα δάνεια που πήρε η χώρα μέσω του Ταμείου Ανάκαμψης και Ανθεκτικότητας για χρηματοδοτήσει ιδιωτικές επενδύσεις. Φέτος, ο στόχος είναι το χρέος να μειωθεί περαιτέρω στο 136% του ΑΕΠ, ώστε η Ελλάδα να πάψει να έχει την πρωτιά του χρέους εντός της ΕΕ.
