By Anestis Ntokas

 

The Athens Stock Exchange is climbing to new 13-year highs on Wednesday, the first trading session after the Easter holidays, bridging the distance from the next threshold of 1,500 points.

 

Amid a positive climate and supportive domestic news, the Greek market continues the upward movement of the last few weeks, remaining unaffected by the consecutive Easter holidays.

 

Meanwhile, the first quarter corporate results, combined with the pending business deals, justify the further improvement of valuations in a number of index-weighted stocks.

 

In more detail, in today's session (the first of the current week), the General Index has risen by 1.28% at 1,470.84 points.

 

Banking stocks are the main "leaders", with Alpha Bank rising by more than 2%. Mytilineos is also registering a strong rise, which is approaching the historical highs of 39 euros, while Coca-Cola is close to 31.9 euros. Cenergy is also rallying over 4%, heading for a new record.

 

Greek Economy: The 3+1 summer appointments for a new mid-term and 2025 budget

 

June is a critical month for the 2025 budget, but mainly for the new 4-year medium-term Fiscal Structural Plan that Greece, like the other member states, will submit to the European Commission in the autumn.

 

On June 19-20, the European Commission will present the spring package of recommendations in the context of the European Semester.

 

The package will include recommendations and will reflect the situation of each member country, while the evaluation report of the Greek economy is expected to be made public in the context of the post-program supervision. Given that the new fiscal rules come into full force from 2025, these announcements are of particular importance as, based on the Commission's recommendations, countries are called to prepare their 2025 budgets.

 

Excessive deficit process

 

The next critical date is June 21, as European Economic Commissioner Paolo Gentiloni revealed on Wednesday that the limits for the increase of net primary expenditure for each country will be sent. For Greece, according to sources, it is estimated that it will "lock" around 3% depending on the course of the economy. For this year, the limit set for Greece was 2.6%.

 

What does this mean?

 

Under the new fiscal rules, even costs related to measures that lead to a reduction in tax revenue will be seen as an increase in spending. As many countries will exceed this limit (of net primary expenditure) then the excessive deficit process known to us in Greece since the 2010 crisis will be activated.

 

As soon as the specific expenditure indicator is "locked in", the drawing up of the new 4-year medium-term "budget" will be the subject of consultations with the Commission in the summer.

 

Adjustment period

 

It is noted that the plans will set out fiscal targets, priority reforms and investments, as well as measures to address any possible macroeconomic imbalances during a period of fiscal adjustment. The "adjustment period" refers to the time frame within which, through a combination of fiscal adjustments, reforms and investment, a member state's debt level is put on a sustainable downward trajectory.