Greece’s financial success
On Thursday 11th December, Greece’s Minister of Economy and Finance Kyriakos Pierrakakis was elected President of the Eurogroup – the informal meeting of EU finance ministers which guides the Union’s economic policy. As Minister of Digital Governance, Mr Pierrakakis oversaw the rapid and successful digitisation of government services in the first Mitsotakis administration of 2019-23, and apart from being a recognition of his personal qualities, the choice is a remarkable turnaround for a country which only ten years ago was under strong pressure from the same Eurogroup – and particularly the German Finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble – to leave the euro. That did not happen and following a period of supervision by the EFSF/ESM and the IMF, which made large loans to help the country through its financial crisis, Greece’s financial position has gradually improved to the point where it was able make early repayments of the more expensive IMF loans by 2022, and anticipates fully paying off the first bailout loans by 2031, 10 years ahead of schedule.