GREECE. After announcing a fund surplus of 12.1 cardinal euros (4.9% of GDP) Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis presented a bundle of 8 measures to “support” the population.
The occupation is that this surplus, successful fact, was formed astatine the disbursal of the citizens themselves. And present the aforesaid radical are being offered “help” from funds that were antecedently confiscated from them.
The logic is simple: first, resources are taken from the system done taxes and rising prices, then portion of this wealth is returned, presenting it arsenic support.
What precisely is announced
- Extension of diesel subsidy – 20 cents per liter done May;
- Fertilizer subsidy – 15% until August;
- Payments to families – 150 euros per kid (about 1 cardinal households);
- Increasing assistance to pensioners, the aged and radical with disabilities to 300 euros annually;
- Expanding the refund of 1 rent outgo to much tenants;
- Mitigation of measures connected debts: partial lifting of seizures of accounts upon outgo of 25% of the debt;
- Expanding entree to out-of-court indebtedness colony (from 5,000 euros);
- New installment program – up to 72 payments connected aged debts.
Total bundle volume: approx. 500 cardinal euros.
Where did the surplus travel from?
Officially, the authorities talk astir a “strong economy” and “effective governance.”
But successful information we are talking astir a antithetic mechanism:
- high VAT;
- increase successful excise taxes connected substance and energy;
- accelerated tax collection;
- weak power implicit terms increases.
Against this background, household expenses are increasing faster than income, and existent purchasing powerfulness is declining.
Real picture
According to information for March 2026:
- food products: +4.4% (in EU — astir +2.1%);
- milk: +7.2%;
- baby food: +5.7%;
- fuels and vigor – double-digit maturation rates.
At the aforesaid time, wages and pensions bash not support gait with rising prices.
It is this discrepancy that forms the fund surplus.
Where does the wealth go?
A important portion of the funds is not directed to the economy, but to the aboriginal repayment of nationalist debt.
Already paid successful 2025 5.3 cardinal eurosin 2026 it is planned to 8.8 cardinal eurosin bid to adjacent obligations importantly up of schedule.
Officially, this is presented arsenic expanding marketplace assurance and redeeming connected interest.
In fact, this is simply a redistribution of resources from the existent needs of the colonisation to the fiscal stability of the state.
Editorial comment
As a result, a alternatively elemental structure is formed: the state increases fiscal pressure, creates a surplus, and then partially returns the funds, presenting it arsenic support.
At the aforesaid time, the standard of the “return” remains disproportionate to the archetypal withdrawal, which widens the spread betwixt authoritative rhetoric and the existent situation of households.
In this logic, the aged look sounds particularly accurate: redeeming drowning radical is the work of the drowning radical themselves.
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