Greece’s finance minister on Wednesday outlined his government’s economic policy goals for the coming 18 months and fielded questions from MEPs on the ongoing reforms.
Attending the opening meeting of the Economic and Monetary Affairs committee after the summer recess, Mr Staikouras presented Greece’s recovery and resilience plan and laid out the milestones for the country’s economy until the first part of 2023. MEPs quizzed the minister, mainly on some of the details in the plan, while also seeking his views on more EU-wide issues, such as the reform of the EU’s economic governance rules.
MEPs broadly welcomed Greece’s plan while asking for more details on aspects such as the pensions and health insurance gap, the state of the banking sector, high energy costs and its effect on competitiveness, and the persistently high public debt burden especially in the light of possibly increasing interest rates. MEPs also asked whether Greece was still considering the creation of a bad bank, what role it would allow for collective bargaining as part of the structural reforms, and what was planned regarding the high VAT gap, expected only to grow due to a subdued tourism sector due to the pandemic.
Some MEPs were more critical however, saying that there was an important difference between the rosy economic perspectives the Greek government was painting and the predictions of the European Commission, and that the real economy, particularly SMEs, had been largely abandoned by the plan. During the meeting it was also suggested that economic reforms were slowing in Greece.
