Skylakakis: The government guarantees that it will put the country in a better era

“We kept standing in the storms of the last period and we kept the helm of the country stable and we kept both the economy and the society upright, with very large expenses that were designed in a way that brings results”, said the Deputy Minister of Finance Theodoros Skylakakis, discussion of the budget in Parliament, to emphasize that with the end of the pandemic, a better period begins for Greece and the government guarantees that it will put the country in a better era.

Mr. Skylakakis, who explained why the government characterizes the 2022 budget as a development budget, also commented on what the SYRIZA MP said about the minimum wage.

“We have a budget that goes beyond recovery to growth,” said the deputy finance minister, adding that in 2021 we have a recovery, in 2022 we will have growth. “Until we have growth, obviously we can not assume that we have growth. When you had a one-year recession of 9% and did not reduce the minimum wage – and you did well and did not reduce it, because it is a temporary phenomenon – obviously when the situation returns, “You have growth. You have a recovery. In 2022, when we have growth, wait to see what happens to the minimum wage. We will see that for sure.”

Elements of the 2022 budget, said the Deputy Minister of Finance, are “the transition from emergency to normal” and “the transition from private and public consumption to investment.” An economy can be based on consumption for a year, but this can not be considered sustainable in the long run, said Mr. Skylakakis and stressed that an economy must be based on investment and extroversion in order to have long-term growth.

Referring to the environment in which the budget was drafted, the Deputy Minister of Finance said that “the 2022 budget is based on the assumption that we will return, from a health point of view, to economic normalcy, even if we still have some health burdens. What exactly will happen “I can not tell you with absolute accuracy, but this is predicted by both international bodies and international organizations”, said Mr. Skylakakis and added that this depends on a combination of factors, such as the speed of vaccinations, in terms of and the first and third doses, the rate of mutations. “We have a demonic mutation, the ‘Delta’ mutation, with a very high probability of spreading to the unvaccinated and we do not know how it will eventually develop, how long this wave will last, and how painful it will be,” said the deputy minister. Greece is not the only problem. “However, we designed the budget this year, assuming that the pandemic, as an economic variable, will gradually disappear from the beginning of 2022. If the opposition has another hypothesis and scientific data to support it, it can put it. It will be a However, if this does not happen, the next budget “, said Theodoros Skylakakis and stressed that” the fiscal freedom given by the pandemic, ends in 2022, ends in this budget “and” from 2023 we return to a budget with targets and whether these targets will be milder, in terms of institutions, is indeed likely and desirable, but the targets will in any case have primary surpluses “and” we will have to have a fiscal order that we will maintain for a very long time “. Therefore, the deputy minister stressed, “the expenses we can make are not unlimited”, because “no one has given us a white check to write, but it is expenses given the budgetary constraints, within which we move”.

Especially for the expenses of the Ministry of Health, which are at the center of the criticism of the opposition, Theodoros Skylakakis said that “in 2018, in the budget of SYRIZA, these were foreseen 3.760 billion euros, in 2019 3.884 billion euros were foreseen, in 2020 “In the budget of ND) 3.859 billion were foreseen. In 2021, without covid expenses, expenses of 4.126 billion were foreseen. “The cold numbers say that we, without covid spending, set the spending at 600 million euros more than what SYRIZA had predicted,” said the deputy finance minister. At the same time, he referred to the expenses for the hospitals. “In 2018, 2.5 billion euros were projected, in 2019 expenditures were budgeted at 3.1 billion. For 2022, the projected expenditure for hospitals is 3.4 billion euros,” he said, noting that the total state expenditure for health amounts to 11.7 billion euros, ie 6.2% of GDP.

Referring to the accuracy, Mr. Skylakakis said that the government has taken measures in excess of 1 billion euros and pointed out that “just the day before yesterday, additional measures amounting to 388 million euros were announced, which, mainly, were measures to cover the loss of income “. He also pointed out the interventions for energy, which also require fiscal space, the minimum guaranteed income which is doubled in December and the return of the EFK to diesel to farmers.

As in the ongoing budget debate, opposition parties accuse the government of exacerbating social inequalities, with its policy, the Deputy Finance Minister pointed out that, based on Eurostat data, Greece is very close to the average, while the calculations of the SOE show a reduction of inequalities compared to 2018, and 2019 and 2020 and “this reduction will be greater, after the measures for low-income retirees”. He hastened to emphasize that “the reduction of inequalities in the midst of a pandemic and the way out of the pandemic crisis” is due to the reduction of unemployment but also to the increase of social expenditures. Indicatively, he stated that the expenses of OPEC, which is responsible for all allowances, will have a serious real increase, compared to the period of SYRIZA and are predicted that in 2022 it will be 3.7 billion euros.

As social inequalities are exacerbated by tax evasion and contribution evasion, the deputy finance minister said it was a key government policy to reduce this cause of inequality as well. This policy is being implemented, as he explained, through the Recovery Fund and other government policies, to a large extent. As he noted, electronic transactions have already increased and incentives are being institutionalized, while incentives are given by reducing taxes and insurance contributions, as well as incentives for synergies. “Consequently, the government is pursuing a policy which is primarily aimed at reducing social inequalities and social justice,” Mr Skylakakis said.

Regarding investments, the Deputy Minister of Finance, after pointing out that Greece between 2010-2019 was below the average of the euro area, said that the increase of investments is a condition for the survival of the Greek economy and is a crucial condition for end the impoverishment of much of the Greek people. In the period 2020-2021, we saw a real upheaval in the field of investments, said the minister and added that in the coming years there will be a very large increase in investment. He pointed out that in 2022, 11 billion euros are planned to be spent through the Public Investment Program, together with the resources of the Recovery Fund. “Such public investments have never been made in the last decade. It is a huge investment expense and that explains why the economy will do better in 2022,” said Mr. Skylakakis, noting that to date 3.6 billion projects have been included in the Recovery Fund. and described as achievable the goal, by the end of the year, to close the issue of contracts with banks and to disburse the first 1.5 billion to start investing in loans. With the recovery and resilience plan, I believe we can make a real leap towards a more extroverted, competitive, greener, more digital economy. “Let’s hit the informal economy and the inequality it produces and the anti-development aspect and create more than 200,000 jobs in the country when this plan ends,” said the deputy finance minister.

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