Greeks will pay less in property tax, whilst there are some updates in the Greek banking sector.
The European Central Bank will continue to accept Greek state bonds as collateral for supplying liquidity to Greek banks after June, according to an announcement on Thursday.
"The Governing Council has decided to continue to allow NCBs to accept as eligible collateral Greek government bonds (GGBs) that do not satisfy the Eurosystem’s minimum credit quality requirements but fulfil all other applicable eligibility criteria, for at least as long as reinvestments in GGBs under the pandemic emergency purchase programme (PEPP) continue," an ECB announcement said.
The bank announced its decision to gradually phase out the package of pandemic collateral easing measures in place since April 2020 in three phases between July 2022 and March 2024. It said that bonds will continue to be accepted as collateral for bank loans until at least the end of 2024.
According to the Bank of Greece, Greek banks have drawn more than 50 billion euros in liquidity from the ECB.
Meanwhile, the Attica Bank Board of Directors elected as new independent non-executive members Ioannis Zografakis, Aimilios Giannopoulos and Grigorios Zarifopoulos, it said on Thursday, following the resignation of Venetia Kousia, Sotirios Karkalakos and Konstantinos Tsagaropoulos.
It also elected Patrick Horend as a board member in order to complete the 11-member composition of the board, as stipulated by the General Meeting of September 2, 2020.
The election is valid for the remaining BoD term of office, or September 1, 2023.
Elsewhere, from this year and on a permanent basis, Greek citizens will have to pay 860 million euros less Uniform Real Estate Property Tax (ENFIA) than they did under the SYRIZA government in 2018, Finance Minister Christos Staikouras said on Wednesday in Parliament, during the debate on a draft finance ministry bill that modernises the operation of the capital market and also reduces ENFIA.
He said the new reduction in ENFIA was calculated at 360 million euros in nominal value but the reduction in tax actually collected was forecast to be closer to 240-250 million euros "because experience has shown that when tax rates are reduced, collectability increases."
Staikouras noted that for every 1 pct increase in collectability, ENFIA (revenues) increased by 20 million euros.
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