The Greek government’s draft budget for 2017 received “negative marks” in a report compiled and presented by Parliament’s Budget Office, a constitutionally mandated process overseen by technocrats permanently employed by Greece’s unicameral legislature.
The report refers to “tax-based” austerity in order to achieve a 1.75-percent primary budget surplus, as a percentage of GDP – a memorandum-mandated fiscal target.
Additionally, the report warns that the draft budget continues an “intense pre-cyclical economic policy”, which it describes as increases in taxes coupled with spending cuts amid a recessionary environment. It stated that this policy was followed throughout the economic crisis, since 2009, making prospects for a return to growth rates more difficult.
Nevertheless, the report adds that whatever recessionary repercussions can be neutralized with a change in the economic climate through a successful second review of the Greek program.
