Greece’s preliminary draft budget for 2014 is expected to be published and submitted to the Parliament on Oct. 7 at at noon. According to the estimates, there will be a primary surplus for the first time in a decade, about 1.5% of GDP or 2.8 billion euros, according to the Finance Ministry.
That, however, does not include the cost of interest on loans, social security, municipal budgets, state enterprises and some military budgets or there would be a huge deficit.
The estimate is for a return to growth for the first time since a crushing economic crisis began six years ago, estimated to be 0.6 percent although virtually all previous estimates have been wrong. That would be a remarkable rebound from this year, when the economy is expected to shrink some 4 percent.
The new budget will include revenue increases of 1.5 billion euros and primary expenditure cuts of €3.2 billion in order to achieve the targets for deficit and debt in 2014.
The final version of the budget will be finalized and submitted to the Parliament in November , after completing the negotiations with the Troika, the country’s international lenders who are putting up $325 billion in two rescue packages to keep the economy from collapsing.
The draft budget will not be part of Troika‘s decision-making process about filling a financial gap of the Greek program estimated to be $11-$14 billion. The government said it would find a way to fix it without restoring to more austerity measures.
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