ATHENS, Sept 5 (Reuters) \u2013 Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Saturday unveiled a four-year economic plan that includes tax breaks and wage hikes for pensioners and employees, as he seeks to recover lost ground in \u200bopinion polls ahead of next year\u2019s election.<\/p>\n
The measures, with a cost \u200cof \u20ac3.5 billion ($4.06 billion) by 2030, equal to 1.5% of GDP, include an annual bonus of \u20ac400 for pensioners and \u20ac500 for public servants, zero tax for up to \u20ac20,000 annual income for farmers and families with three children and a reduction of the advance tax payment for self-employed and businesses \u200cto \u200b50%.<\/p>\n
His center-right government, which was re-elected with 40.5% of \u2060the vote in 2023 promising \u2060to increase incomes, remains ahead in opinion polls but support has slipped to below 30% amid a protracted cost-of-living crisis and allegations of corruption.<\/p>\n
In December, thousands of farmers took to the streets to demonstrate over low prices of \u200btheir products, high energy costs and a farm aid fraud scandal that sparked political resignations and drew a hefty EU fine.<\/p>\n
FROM CRISIS TO GROWTH<\/p>\n
After a \u2060financial crisis in 2009 that triggered fears Greece \u2060would crash out of the euro zone, the country is \u200bnow one of the best-performing in Europe.<\/p>\n
Greece\u2019s economy is expanding at an annual rate \u200bof 2%, outpacing the euro zone average. It expects a primary \u200csurplus of about 4% this year, double what was initially expected, giving fiscal space to fund the new measures.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe road from bankrupt and the fringes of Europe to the epicenter of Europe has been long,\u201d said Mitsotakis, adding that the time \u2060has come to \u201creap the benefits of our efforts.\u201d<\/p>\n
He was delivering his annual economic speech in the northern city of Thessaloniki. Mitsotakis also announced new annual hikes in the minimum \u2060monthly salary to reach \u20ac1,000 \u200cby 2028, from \u20ac920 today, a reduction of half a \u2060percentage point for pension contributions for private-sector employees and 30% \u200blower electricity \u200cwholesale prices by 2029.<\/p>\n
He said his target in the \u200bnext four years \u2060is to reduce\u00a0 unemployment to below 6% from 8% at present,\u00a0the debt to GDP ratio to below 110% and the average monthly salary to reach\u00a0 \u20ac1,800 from \u20ac1,500 today. He added that he wants the country\u2019s debt rating to be upgraded to \u201cA\u201d category from \u201cBBB\u201d today.<\/p>\n
($1 = 0.8611 euro)<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Lefteris Papadimas in Athens, Editing by Timothy Heritage, Toby \u200bChopra and Matthew Lewis)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ATHENS, Sept 5 (Reuters) \u2013 Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Saturday unveiled a four-year economic plan that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":131377,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2480],"tags":[2487,2486,2485],"class_list":["post-131449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-euro-zone","tag-euro-area","tag-euro-zone","tag-eurozone"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131449"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131449\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/131377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}