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General News
Meropi Kyriacou Honored as TNH Educator of the Year
NEW YORK – Meropi Kyriacou, the new Principal of The Cathedral School in Manhattan, was honored as The National Herald’s Educator of the Year.
ATHENS – While Greece’s government in 2024 is now dealing with providing compensation for homeowners and businesses who lost properties to wildfires that reached into the capital’s neighborhoods, 880 million euros ($969.22 million) is being earmarked in the 2025 budget for relief.
That will come out of a 115 billion euro ($126.66 billion) financial plan that will also face a new increase in pensions with retirees finally getting higher benefits after going without for 12 years during an economic crisis that brought harsh austerity measures.
Institutions and ministries have submitted their proposals, including estimates on expenditure and revenue for the current year and 2025, to the General Accounting Office, although the totals for what’s expected to be a record 2024 tourism year aren’t in.
Under new Stability Pact rules, the primary tool for fiscal discipline is primary expenditure, which can no longer increase by more than 3 percent, noted Business Daily, the 2025 budget up from 111.6 billion euros ($122.91 billion) in 2024.
Inflation that pushed supermarket prices out of reach for many households is seen dropping to about 2 percent as the New Democracy government tries to allocate enough for relief, public sector hires of teachers and others and pension hikes.
Three international bailouts of 326 billion euros ($357.93 billion) from 2010-18 to prop up an economy brought to the edge of ruin by years of wild overspending and runaway patronage have cut into the once unsustainable debt ratio.
That is expected to fall from 152.7 percent of the Gross Domestic Product of 197.58 billion euros ($217.6 billion) in 2024 to 146.3 percent in 2024 although it will take decades to repay what remains of the rescue packages.
The government plans to pay out 400 million euros ($440.53 million) in pension increases, cut social security contributions by 0.5 percent – which will cost 225 million euros ($247.8 million) and 120 million euros ($132.16 million) for the abolition of the business levy, the report said.
Also, 100 million euros ($110.13 million) for a permanent refund of the excise tax on agricultural diesel fuel, 20 million euros ($22.03 million) for extending a suspension of Value Added Tax on new buildings and 15 million euros ($16.52 million) for an increase in the student housing allowance.
