Fiscal policy

The joint statement on the orientation of the eurozone's fiscal policy for 2025 satisfies Cyprus as it validates the cautious and conservative fiscal policy that Cyprus has followed so far, Minister of Finance Makis Keravnos said on Monday in Brussels, where he was attending the meeting of the Eurogroup.

A program launched a year ago providing subsidies to companies to hire former drug addicts, ex-convicts, victims of gender-based violence and human trafficking, and others to assist them in re-entering the labor market has reportedly been crowned with success.

Minister of Shipping and Island Policy Christos Stylianidis is close to securing subsidies and credits of the order of 1.5 billion euros to finance new coastal passenger ferries, which will drastically reduce the sector's carbon dioxide emissions.

More than 5,000 applications for vouchers to cover the cost of cash register-integrated POS terminals were received on Monday, according to an announcement released on Tuesday by the National Economy and Finance Ministry and the Digital Governance Ministry.

The president spoke briefly with the factory workers and wished them happy work.
The production process was presented to him.
"This looks amazing," commented the president of the machine shop.

Thirty years after farmers first started blocking roads with their tractors, little has changed in the primary sector. Farmers are aging and their number is shrinking, good arable land remains relatively scarce and cooperatives exist mainly as a lever of pressure on the government of the time, while training is still lagging.

Amidst a fervent outcry, 26 agricultural organizations will gather outside the Council of Ministers, demanding the immediate resignation of Agriculture Minister Kiril Vatev. Defiant against government negotiations, these longstanding groups, boasting a collective 20 years of existence and employing over 300,000 individuals, assert their legitimacy.

As it emerged from the constructive debate in Parliament on Friday, government incentives to attract foreign capital, such as the Golden Visa program, have ended up causing more distortions in the property market than benefiting the national economy.

The acuteness of the housing crisis, but also the traces of opacity, justify a complete revision of the current regime.

"Bulgaria has had a history of low deficit, low debt to GDP. So that part of the system has worked very well. We can say that the monetary and fiscal situation has worked well since July 1997, when we installed the currency board in Bulgaria. So, it's a big success. Now, the failure side was obvious to me when I was an advisor to President Stoyanov in 1997. And that is corruption.

Protesting farmers with their tractors take part in a rally outside an agricultural fair in the port city of Thessaloniki, northern Greece, Thursday. Greek farmers - hit by rising costs and crop damage caused by recent floods and wildfires - are threatening to block highways to press demands for tax relief and higher subsidy payments. [Giannis Papanikos/AP]