Greece unveils public payment-tracking platform and new tax, loan measures for businesses

Greece plans to launch Synepeia, an online portal that will publicly list government entities that postpone payments, aiming to boost transparency and pressure delinquent bodies. Finance Minister Kyriakos Pierrakakis said the platform will display the duration of each delay. He outlined a gradual reduction of the corporate income-tax pre-payment rate from 80% to 50%, cutting it by five percentage points each year, while warning that each step shrinks fiscal space by roughly €400 million.

The minister reaffirmed the upcoming phase-out of the business levy, contingent on fiscal capacity. He introduced a €1.5 billion lending scheme for SMEs, leveraging the Recovery and Resilience Fund to generate about €5 billion in total financing, and cited recent grant and loan figures from EU programmes and the Hellenic Development Bank. Additional measures include a 30% target for cutting energy costs, a proposed youth investment “piggy-bank” with state matching up to €1,200 per year, and reforms to out-of-court debt settlements. Pierrakakis highlighted that unemployment fell to 7.9% in July and stressed the need for growth beyond one outlet 2% rate.