A strong reduction records the percentage of (non-serviced), according to the evidence quoted in the House by the Deputy Minister of Finance, during the debate on the New Development Programme for Public Investment. Papathanasis said that “with the initiatives taken by the government, the percentage of red loans that in 2019 exceeded 40%, was limited to 7.5% in 2024”, responding to criticism received from Members of all opposition parties, who accused her of abolishing any framework of protection of vulnerable social groups leaving them at the mercy of banks and “servicer”. Overall in 2020-21 non-performing loans to banks and ‘servicer’ amounted to 92.2 billion euros while in the first quarter of 2024, they have decreased to 70.4 billion euros. In 2019 non-performing loans were around 50% of the total amount of the economy’s loans and today this percentage has fallen significantly to 32%,” Mr Papathanasis said and added: “This improvement is very important and is of course recognised by many international rating agencies involved in the economy, because any upgrade means a substantial reduction in our debt service and this gives the state a financial margin. The Deputy Minister of Finance also gave evidence of the results of the extrajudicial mechanism, pointing out that ‘with the elections of 2023 new obligations were submitted to the servicer and the reinforcement of the perimeter was extended where it became essentially mandatory for all, for the benefit of our vulnerable fellow citizens and disabled persons’. “The settings of the extrajudicial mechanism are now moving at low historical levels. In August 2024, now 22,214 successful arrangements for initial debts of EUR 7.5 billion have been recorded, while in relation to August 2023, an increase in the arrangements has been recorded by 50.4%. Remember that in August 2019, the respective arrangements of the extrajudicial mechanism ranged from disappointing levels: just 2,200 arrangements in total,” noted Mr Papathanasis. Moreover, the Deputy Finance Minister rejected the opposition’s criticism of the bill that spoke of another vague ineffective government development plan without vision, without national strategy, without commitments and provisions for supporting small and medium-sized enterprises but also transparency and accountability. “Four are the key features of the bill: speed, transparency, efficiency and public continuous account,” Mr Papathanasis objected by pointing out that this year the Public Investment Programme is increased by EUR 900 million. As he stressed, “The Public Investment Programme is the main source of funding for our country’s development policy and contributes decisively to maintaining primary surpluses […] It is an umbrella which includes all European instruments and national participation of European tools as well as the national part of the National Development Programme. Within the Public Investment Programme this year we have an increase of 900m euros while the total amount entered into the Greek economy in 2024 is now at a record level and from 12.2 billion euros, it now totals 13.1 billion euros and this course as planned will be growing for 2025 and 2026. In 2025 we plan to amount to 14.4 billion euros and 2026 to 15.9 billion euros,” he stressed. Finally, Mr Papathanasis assured that the Medium-term Financial Programme 2025-2028 will soon come to Parliament, stressing that Greece with the fiscal policy that followed is now far from the previous difficult years. “It is an obligation for all EU Member States to enter into a process of drafting their budgets for the coming years. It is therefore important that we know our country’s budgetary capabilities precisely because if we do not achieve the objectives, then something that is now happening in 8 countries could happen: to enter an excessive deficit procedure and then accept recommendations and if they do not correct their budgetary positions, perhaps also to become more supervised. But Greece is far from it. It has been difficult in previous years, it has gone through three memoranda and we do not want to mortgage the future of young children because we want Greece to be stable, growth and create new jobs,” stressed Papathanasis. The drafting of the bill in the responsible committee of the House was also completed at second reading and tomorrow it is scheduled to be debated and voted on by the plenary. Source: RES – ICM
Papathanase: Data show significant decrease in red loans
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