The European Commission has estimated that Greece has shown resilience in face of the capital controls that were introduced in 2015, as explained in the European Economic Forecast for Winter 2016 that was published.

According to the European Commission, there will be a 0.7% of GDP recession in Greece for 2016, with the economy expected to return to growth in 2017 with an estimated 2.7% of GDP rate.

The report also shows that the rate of unemployment is slowly reducing, from 25.1% in 2015 to an estimated 24% in 2016 and 22.8% in 2017. Similarly, the European Commission expects the budget deficit in Greece to be 7.6% GDP in 2014, 3.4% in 2015 and 2.1% in 2017.

As for the Greek public debt, the European Commission’s report indicates that it will amount to 179% GDP in 2015 and is expected to increase to 185% GDP in 2016, before beginning to drop in 2017 (181.8%).

The full report is available online.