On Wednesday 20 September, the ambassadors of the member states of the EU (Coreper) decided to cancel decision 2009/415/EC on the existence of an excessive deficit in Greece.
This decision was made against the Hellenic Republic on 27 April 2009, when the Greek public deficit stood at 3.5% of GDP (see EUROPE 9890). Having implemented many reforms to comply with various bailout plans, Greece saw a primary budgetary surplus (not including servicing of the debt) of 4.2% of GDP in 2016 (see EUROPE 11786) and, as was agreed at the Eurogroup meeting on 15 June of this year, this surplus is expected to remain at 3.5% of GDP until 2022 (see EUROPE 11810).
For this reason, the European Commission put a proposal to the Council of the EU on 12 July to move Greece out of the excessive deficit procedure (see EUROPE 11828) and into the preventative plank of the stability and growth pact. This recommendation was taken up on Wednesday 20 September.
This decision of Coreper, which leaves the actual exit from the excessive deficit procedure in no doubt, has nonetheless still to be approved by the Council, meeting in its 'General Affairs' configuration, on 25 September. (Original version in French by Lucas Tripoteau)