New leader Mitsotakis unveils his economic plan

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis is moving into policy implementation mode, starting with plans to revive the economy and cut taxes.

Lawmakers will vote late Monday on a procedural confidence motion in the new government after a debate that started Saturday. At the outset, Mitsotakis presented his fouryear economic agenda in his first plenary speech to parliament since winning national elections on July 7.

Greece’s 2020 budget will show the country’s “fiscal balance isn’t disrupted nor are the primary surplus targets of the previous government,” Mitsotakis said. By achieving the targets for this year and next, the government will have the ability to lower the primary surplus level in the coming years “to a more realistic level,” he said.

The premier’s priority is a reform of Greece’s complex tax system to create a more pro-business environment, necessary for attracting investment to boost the economy’s recovery. Mitsotakis wants to make good on election pledges to alleviate the tax burden for crisis-weary Greeks, specifically for the middle classes who were targeted the most by the previous administration.

While Greece’s creditors are generally supportive of the proposed tax changes, they want him to make sure that agreed fiscal targets won’t be endangered. Greece should make growth its top priority while at the same time maintaining the agreed primary surplus, ESM Managing Director Klaus Regling said in Athens this week.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Friday she is “convinced” that Mitsotakis’s program “will bring with it good chances for more growth, and a strengthening of impulses for growth in Greece.”

Mitsotakis said he will introduce legislation as soon as next week to reduce the so-called Enfia property tax by as much as 30%, according to the value of properties. Other measures, including cutting business taxes, will be introduced later.the government plans to reduce the corporate tax rate to 20% in two phases. The first step, in September, will cut the rate to 24% from 28% in 2019 and to 20% in 2020.