A senior analyst and economist for Oxford Economics this week pointed to post-pandemic recovery plans submitted by Greece and Italy, and to a lesser extent Portugal, as standing out amongst EU members.

Daniel Kral’s Oxford Economics studied the NextGenerationEU (NGEU) plan totaling a whopping 806 billion euros – or roughly 6 percent of EU27 GDP – and duly raised forecasts for private sector investment in Greece in the immediate post-Covid-19 period.

The greater impact of NGEU on Greece’s future economic growth was due to the fact that 12.7 billion euros was added to the calculation, money expected to be derived from bank lending combined with private sector and EU institutional creditors’ financing of various projects.

Kral also pointed to wide-ranging improvements and modernization of the public sector and justice system included in both Greece’s and Italy’s recovery blueprints – sectors which in the past have been identified as impediments to greater growth in both countries.

Headlines