The Report and Balance Sheet of 2019 was voted by ND and SYRIZA

“The European Commission today released its autumn forecast of 7.1% growth for this year and 5.2% for 2022 and this is very important positive news,” said Deputy Finance Minister Theodoros Skylakakis during the approval debate. Report and audit of the implementation of the 2019 Budget to the competent Committee.

The Deputy Finance Minister noted that the government is more “conservative” than the EU’s autumn forecast, but stressed that this forecast helps us a lot in the markets and shows very emphatically that we are achieving a Type V recovery and that in 2022 we will certainly surpass the national income of 2019 “and he added that” if we calculate the huge blow of the pandemic, plus all the rest that happened to us in these two years, I think this is a clearly positive development “.

Regarding the overall position of the Greek State, Mr. Skylakakis said that it is obvious that the position is positive, because the public property is very large, which, unfortunately, the Greek state has never managed to assess it until today. correctly. As he said, this will be done through a large project that has been included in the Recovery Fund and includes the Register of Fixed Assets and the creation of a real record of mobile phones, as well as public consumables. He announced in advance that within January we will have a contractor for the project, as the competition is progressing normally. He also noted that we did not have more than one offer, at which time we will have a contractor to finally make this reform that began to be discussed in 2014.

Also, after this reform, the Electronic Invoice will be introduced in the public sector so that we can obtain these Registers and update the counting system, said Mr. Skylakakis.

Responding to MPs’ comments on the write-offs and reductions recorded from tax revenues, he said that in fact they are due to debt registrations that we should consider uncollectible, but due to various laws we are obliged to pursue them around you. That, said the deputy minister, is that we need to look more at the collection of annual revenues, as this is the real indicator, as well as to separate the regular revenues from the fines and surcharges which in many cases are fictitious and uncollectible.

Mr. Skylakakis stated that when the unified accounting system will be created, it will cover the general government and corrections will be corrected regarding the central state, as today misleading images are created when we do not examine the issues at a general level. government that is the only thing that counts fiscally. Thus, some may “read” that in 2019 we had a deficit, when in fact we had a real surplus, the minister noted.

The Deputy Minister of Finance stressed that if we make a reform, it should be to give a much greater emphasis to the fiscal space, which is the crucial element. He noted that in the Balance Sheet and Report of the state is not really written what happens to our budgets, which is what determines the policies. And he cited an example of a provision that passed before the 2019 elections and concerned LAPETE, where Eurostat subsequently included it in the results for the year as an expense that burdened the budget result by 545 million euros.

Regarding the remarks of the Court of Auditors’ report that the Regular Reserve was used for expenditures that do not fall within its purposes, Mr. Skylakakis said that this was a permanent problem that was corrected with the implementation of the Special Reserve which also reduces the under-execution of public costs.

Responding to the comments of SYRIZA MPs about the “pillow” he countered that the problem of the economy is not whether we have a “pillow” and in what size, because today we have a bigger “pillow” or the same as in 2019, but the problem was what does it fill with. And he stated that the “cushion” of 2019 from the SYRIZA government was filled with 11.5 billion euros from the over-taxation because he did not enjoy the trust of either the markets or the Institutions and to fill this gap he made surpluses, while we who have the confidence of the markets (due to a pro-investment policy that guarantees that we can have growth in the coming years) and the Institutions (because we complete the ratings) we have a high “cushion” filled with confidence that leads to low interest rates and lending without cutting edge the economy by over-taxation.

Regarding state-owned enterprises and whether they are ultimately “gold mines” for our national economy, as stated by opposition MPs, the Deputy Minister of Finance said that the reality is “that we have indeed paid these enterprises gold… with a lot of money that “Taxpayers have given all these years and these are billions, if one adds them up, which go into debt and create the obligation of primary surpluses and in the end the taxpayer pays them through VAT, income tax, ENFIA etc”. These, said Mr. Skylakakis, “are billions that we can not forget when we discuss these companies and approach the issue fantastically and say that if we managed them better we would make billions, while in the real world we put billions.” .

SYRIZA rapporteur Katerina Papanatsiou stressed that it is proving that the SYRIZA-ANEL government achieved a clean exit from the country and put an end to the memorandum programs and the suffocating restrictions, put an end to poverty and the destruction of the popular strata that had no participation. of the fiscal crisis, but paid dearly for its consequences. He noted that the New Democracy, which blamed the creation of surpluses and surpluses, was this “cushion” that he found ready and was able to face the economic consequences of the pandemic. The fiscal order we put in place allowed the ND government to borrow on favorable terms, said Ms. Papanatsiou and criticized her for managing the popular strata unequally and unjustly during the pandemic, saving the great economic interests. He stressed that the path to a fairer transition to the post-memorandum era that was planned in the Budget of the SYRIZA government of 2019 was unfortunately interrupted by the election of the government of New Democracy and stressed that “the Budget of 2019 that we designed and the situation you created then it is day and night. ”

The special spokesman of KINAL, Costas Skandalidis, stated that his party obviously cannot approve the Reports and Balance Sheets of 2019, as well as the sub-chapter of the second half that reflects the policies of the ND government. He noted that the government of ND did not intend to renegotiate any of the heavy legacies of SYRIZA, nor the absurd primary surplus of 3.5%, nor the mortgage of public property through the Super Fund for 99 years, nor the lifting of the protection of the first residence after the abolition of the PASOK law, nor the abolition of EKAS. The only thing that was revised, he said, was the surplus due to the economic crisis – for the whole of Europe – but the remaining commitments remain. Mr. Skandalidis, during his statement, disagreed with a number of fiscal and fiscal policies of the government.

KKE spokesman Nikos Karathanassopoulos voted against the bills, saying that “the 2019 Budget was voted by SYRIZA and the execution was completed by ND, proving that not only are they not different, but one complements the other and is a continuation of the other.” He described the planned development as unjust and class. The taxation said that in essence it burdened the poor masses and the reductions in rates were made only to legal entities. The class budget of 2019, he said, was the one that led to the real blood-stained primary surpluses of 2019, amounting to 8.5 billion euros, which were paid with blood by workers, retirees, self-employed professionals, bio-struggling farmers and we had a redistribution of poverty from the poorest to the poorest.

Hellenic Solution expert Vassilis Viliardos, voting against the two bills, said that the economic slowdown began in the fourth quarter of 2019, before the pandemic with a decrease of 0.7% and a total of 1.9% in the year below its forecasts. Commission. The accounting imperfections that had been identified in the 2017 and 2018 accounts continued without changing anything. He argued that the 2019 Report shows the negative net position of citizens, to minus 318 billion from minus 217 billion that was in 2018 and attributed it to the write-off of receivables. The Greek people, he said, are incurably bankrupt. He described it as strange that the reform for the correct depiction of the state property has not progressed yet. He noted that the AADE, which is controlled by the lenders, puts cash registers everywhere, even the popular ones, without having shown the same zeal for the customs receipts. Among other things, he characterized the adjustment as a criterion on the criterion of receivability and focused on the need to utilize state-owned enterprises that, although they are gold mines, are devalued instead of offering billions.

The special speaker of MERA25, George Logiadis, voted against the two draft laws, saying that they are the product of two memorandum governments. As MERA25, he said, we had exposed the lies of SYRIZA and ND and we had already stressed since the spring of 2020 that the huge losses suffered by the country’s GDP in the years of the memoranda were only slightly compensated. He noted that no matter how many taxes we pay, the public debt which in 2009 was 125% of GDP, in 2019 reached 191% and today is over 210%. We, he stressed, have a psychosis with the debt and the primary surpluses that our creditors have submitted as a method of repaying it, as this method is socially catastrophic, as it turns our country into a debt bondage. He stressed that the huge over-taxation brings the Greek economy and society to disaster, creates poverty and there is huge tax evasion.

SOURCE: ΑΠΕ-ΜΠΕ