A primary surplus of 4.658 billion euros was recorded in the budget for the first 11 months of 2017, according to tentative data released by the finance ministry.
That is 1.58 billion euros over the target that had been set by the government.
Opposition parties, led by New Democracy, have staunchly criticised the government’s exceeding surplus targets.
They charge that the government has overtaxed the middle class so as to offer a one-off pittance to those in the lowest income brackets, so as to build up its patronage pool of voters.
In the aforementioned period, net revenues were 45.142 billion euros, 146 million euros (0.3 percentage points) short of the government’s target.
The net receipts in the state budget were 43.760 billion euros, 517 million euros (1.2 percent) above the target.
State budget expenditures between January-November 2017 were 45.905 billion euros, which is 47.635 billion euros short of the target, which was 47.365 billion euros.
