Moreover, the foreign claims of Greek commercial banks on the Balkan region countries have reached almost € billion, which represents 25% of Greek banks’ total foreign claims and 58% of their own funds. Unfortunately, the state of the Greek economy is far from rosy and many challenges still lie ahead.
After euro area entry, fiscal discipline was relaxed and during the last five years the fiscal deficit has, in fact, worsened. Only this year has it been budgeted to fall below 3% of GDP, while continuous efforts will have to be maintained to reach a balanced position, as required by the EU.