Finance Minister: Greece gradually building the post-COVID-19 era

“Greece is building gradually but steadily the post-coronavirus era, picking up from where it left off in February 2020,” Finance Minister Christos Staikouras said on Wednesday, after meeting with Klaus Regling, the managing director of the European Stability Mechanism.

He noted, however, that these “bets” can be won with wider solutions, European solutions.

The minister added that there presuppose practical solidarity, fast reflexes and high speed among European institutions and partners in order to justify the history of Europe as a power of peace, democracy, growth, social prosperity and cohesion.

Staikouras also referred to the six measures promoted in the post-pandemic era:

• exploiting fiscal flexibility,
• implementing a rational fiscal policy towards focused tax cuts and social insurance contributions,
• successfully draining funds from capital markets and preserving high cash reserves,
• implementing a privatisation and state asset exploitation program,
• reducing the stock of non-performing loans, and
• working methodically and hard to exploit funds from the Next Generation EU.

The Greek Finance Minister reiterated that Greece was among the first European member-states to submit its national recovery and resilience plan to the European Commission.

Staikouras also described the challenges lying ahead for the country:

• leaving the pandemic and its economic impact behind,
• bringing economies back to pre-crisis levels the soonest possible,
• taking prudent advantage of continuing loose fiscal rules,
• preserving all necessary measures until a sustainable recovery is fully established,
• reviewing the terms of the Stability and Growth Pact, and
• achieving the fastest possible disbursement of funds from the EU Recovery Fund.

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