Targets of the Greek budget for 2017 were discussed at the meeting between Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos, Alternate Finance Minister George Chouliarakis and the institutions representing Greece’s creditors on Monday. The talks focused on a number of issues:
* The review of the primary surplus for 2015 (from 0.7 percent to 0.2 percent of the GDP).
* On funding for the National Defense Ministry that has managed to save 400 million euros as it had committed to do so.
* The impact of Eurostat’s downward revision of the fiscal target for 2016.
They also examined ways in which the forecasts for the 2017 budget might be met. According to the source, the creditors did not ask for additional measures, while the economic policy program targets for the fiscal result in 2016 and 2017 were not at stake.
Sources noted that, whatever happens, the finance ministry has a 400-million-euro ‘cushion’ in order to cover further revisions. The Ministry of Finance has the option of restricting the primary surplus target for 2017 to 1.75 percent of the GDP, a target set by the economic program, instead of the current 1.8 percent of the GDP in the draft budget. Should this be done there will be a 140-million-euro saving. A further 300 million euros benchmarked for welfare, health and education would then move to finance social solidarity income.
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