More than twice as much money is available for the 2025 budget than was previously forecast. The spending plan had to be adjusted upwards accordingly. The budget was approved by parliament on Sunday evening. Conservative Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis told MPs that it was now important for the economic success to have a greater impact on the people.

Greece expects 13.5 billion euro budget surplus
Finance Minister Kostis Hatzidakis had originally expected a budget surplus of 6.1 billion euros in his draft budget. Now it is 13.5 billion. According to Greek financial experts, this is due to the fact that Hatzidakis has managed the budget economically. But there are other important reasons for the windfall.

Fighting tax fraud
Firstly, the crackdown on tax evasion is paying off. The digitalization of the tax authorities has made it possible, among other things, to reduce VAT fraud, for example through undeclared work. The resulting losses have been halved to 3.2 billion euros in the last five years. In addition, the conservative government is continuing to privatize. In 2024, 5.8 billion euros are expected to be generated, with the state making 3.3 billion euros from the concession for the Athens city highway alone.

And then there is the economy, where Greece is outperforming many other EU countries. While the EU average is 0.9 percent growth, the Commission is forecasting 2.3 percent growth for Greece in 2025 after 2.1 percent this year.

Holidaymakers and investors
This is not only due to the booming tourism business. The government has also managed to regain the trust of the markets. International rating agencies consider the country worthy of investment again. Microsoft, Google and Pfizer have settled here in recent years, and German companies such as Fraport, RWE, Boehringer Ingelheim and Teamviewer are also active in Greece.

Despite the positive development, Mitsotakis urges people to keep their heads down. The reason for this is the continuing relative poverty of Greeks, whose pensions and wages were slashed during the country's financial crisis from 2010 to 2018.

Income rising
The upturn is only slowly reaching people, although the government has repeatedly increased pensions and the minimum wage slightly. An increase in pensions of 2.4 percent is planned for the coming year, while the minimum wage of 830 euros per month is set to rise gradually to 950 euros by 2027. And employees and employers will each have to pay 0.5 percentage points less social security contributions in future. These and other measures are intended to help people get back on their feet.

Crisis loan repaid early
Unemployment is set to fall to below 10 percent in the coming year - down from more than 40 percent at the height of the crisis. The country is also servicing its debts like a model student: loans to international creditors are being serviced and Athens has even repaid the crisis loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) ahead of schedule. The public debt ratio is set to fall to 147% in 2025 - two years ago it was 164%.

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