Trade with Greece
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●Finally, the Greek presidency will work for the
efficient and thorough preparation of the G20
Finance Ministers and Central Bank Deputies’
Meeting, as part of the ECOFIN Council.
The targets
Operating within this context –of economic policy
achievements and the priorities of the Greek
presidency– Athens has already set specific tar-
gets in regard to the country’s image and reliability
that it tries to transmit outwards. Which are these
targets?
First of all, the Greece of the future should be a
country with a smaller, albeit more efficient state.
In other words, a re-founding of the state is being
attempted. The government claims that the first
results of its interventions are already evident and
include a state with less bureaucracy, less hierar-
chy, but more and faster services, as well as sim-
pler procedures, which are gradually digitized.
The ultimate goal is to make the dealings of citi-
zens, professionals and businesses with the state
increasingly easier, and to gradually eliminate all
the sources of corruption, which fuelled the gray
economy and the use of black money.
The effort is to create a state with less employees,
“but with high value-added government policies
and better targeted public expenditure; a state
that allows private enterprise to participate in the
production and distribution of public goods and at
the same time, secures strong market supervision
and control mechanisms.”
Special emphasis is placed on the public, as well
as private asset registry, the national e-procure-
ment system, the national cadastre, the electronic
registry, the electronic system for monitoring gen-
eral government expenditures and organizations.
Second, it is imperative to heal a great wound and
establish an efficient social state in Greece, by
targeting social expenditure to those in real need,
on a sufficient means-tested basis. The new
social model will be of a more redistributive nature,
to the benefit of the weakest members of Greece’s
society. For that matter, this objective is of para-
mount importance, since no one doubts that the
number of citizens living on the poverty line, as set
by the EU, has increased dramatically, owing to the
fiscal and, in general, the economic crisis.
This is why the effort is focused on directing each
euro of social expenditure to those that are really
in need. Now, all welfare benefit beneficiaries will
be identified in terms of social security number. In
addition, Greece will implement for the first time,
even on a pilot basis, the concept of a Guaranteed
Minimum Income.
