{"id":231879,"date":"2025-10-29T10:41:13","date_gmt":"2025-10-29T10:41:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/231879\/"},"modified":"2025-10-29T10:41:13","modified_gmt":"2025-10-29T10:41:13","slug":"the-primary-surplus-question-ekathimerini-com","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/231879\/","title":{"rendered":"The primary surplus question | eKathimerini.com"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>                            <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"960\" height=\"600\" class=\"picture-main-block-image\" data-nxsrc=\"https:\/\/www.ekathimerini.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/amna-finance_ministry.jpg\" alt=\"The primary surplus question\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/1757917811_amna-finance_ministry-960x600.jpg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Greece once again ranks among the champions of European budget surpluses, according to Eurostat data for 2024: It had the fourth highest surplus, while on average the EU and the eurozone were in deficit.<\/p>\n<p>In recent years, Greece has not only consistently had a positive budget balance and primary surpluses, but has also systematically exceeded the target of each budget. In 2024 the overshoot was impressive: From a primary surplus of 2.1% of GDP foreseen in the year\u2019s budget, it reached 4.8% of GDP.<\/p>\n<p>For 2025, the target has already been revised from a primary surplus of 2.4% of GDP, which was foreseen in the 2025 budget, to 3.6% of GDP, according to the 2026 draft budget. Estimates have been made that it may eventually reach 4% of GDP, but this will be seen next year.<\/p>\n<p>These overperformances have raised concerns whether it would be appropriate to lower the surplus bar a little, so that the government can increase public spending \u2013 e.g. public investments or benefits for the weaker sections of society, or even proceed with broader tax exemptions. After all, primary surpluses are to some extent a result of inflation and the non-indexation of the tax rates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Greece once again ranks among the champions of European budget surpluses, according to Eurostat data for 2024: It&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":138283,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[84,1294,4176,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-231879","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-economy","10":"tag-finance","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom","13":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=231879"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231879\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/138283"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}