Fiscal policy

Responding to criticism by Alternate Finance Minister Dimitris Mardas, the man he succeeded in the post, Christos Staikouras, presented a summary of the fiscal achievements, as he claimed, belonged to the previous government.

Bulgaria's move to take on new external borrowings will provide for its financial stability in the next three years, Finance Minister Vladislav Goranov has said.

In a Sunday interview for the Bulgarian National Radio, he has opined that, under the conditions of "super liquid markets" the act of piling up new debt could actually be carried out in favourable circumstances.

The EU has approached the Greek debt problem as a technical one up until now. Greek governments used to share that perspective. No more. Alexis Tsipras and his Radical Coalition of the Left (Syriza) puts politics front and center. Why? Because the purely mathematical approach of debt dynamics turned out to be a disaster.

BELGRADE - The best anti-recession measure available to Serbia right now is an increase of public investments which should increase from 3 to 3.5 percent of the GDP this year, the Fiscal Council (FC) released.

There is enough money to achieve this, and there are also projects which can be realised to this end, states the Council in the latest analysis.

The ?urozone area has shown a 0.3% GDP growth over the last quarter of 2014 as compared to the previous one, while the EU28 countries altogether performed even better with 0.4% increase according to a Eurostat report published on Friday.

Compared to results from the same period of 2013, the seasonally adjusted GDP of the eurozone rose by 0.9%, and by 1.3% in all EU28 countries.

Greek tax revenues dipped slightly in February, but there was no repeat of the calamitous fall in January, the Finance Ministry said on Friday, bringing some relief to the government as it tries to negotiate a new bailout deal with Europe.

"Austerity measures will be necessary in 2018 as well"

BELGRADE -- The Fiscal Council - an an independent state organ that reports to parliament - says the three-year plan adopted by the government was "good in principle."

BELGRADE - The Fiscal Council released on Wednesday that the three-year plan adopted by the Serbian government is good in principle, adding that nevertheless the austerity measures will be needed in 2018 as well, given that the current plan will not ensure reduction of the public debt by the end of 2017, and this was the measures' objective.

Turkey?s current account deficit has narrowed to $45.84 billion, shrinking by $18.82 billion from last year, in line with expectations, data from the Central Bank showed on Feb. 11.

By Fabio Benedetti-Valentini

Canceling 100 billion euros ($113 billion) of Greece?s debt would enable the country to cut the load in line with targets set by the international authorities that bailed out the nation, the country?s debt adviser, Lazard Ltd?s Matthieu Pigasse, said in a radio interview Tuesday.