At a rate of 1.7% ran the GDP In the second quarter of 2025, according to yesterday’s (05.09.2025) report ELSTAT.
With the first half of the year based on ELSTAT data to “write” growth around 2%, a gap is created that must be covered in order to achieve the annual target of the 2025 budget for GDP (2.3%). The conclusion is that if there is no clear acceleration in the second semester, this year’s pace is in danger of getting lower, which It also lowers the base for 2026.
What is the picture of the second quarter and why is it a problem for the whole year and for 2026
1.7% of the second quarter is not disastrous (given the zero growth in the eurozone), but it is lower than expected and is necessary to achieve the target for the annual rate of expansion of GDP.
In terms of economic staff, it is stated that despite the slowdown “the annual growth rate remains on targets”. The fact is that with a first six months close to 2% on average, the second semester will have to run significantly faster to bridge the gap. To achieve the budget target for 2.3% over 2025, the next two quarters need to move with a 2.65% average annually – a “distance” quite large compared to 1.7%. Otherwise, in 2025 it will close lower than the design and the economy will enter 2026 from a smaller “base” of GDP, even if the same growth rates are maintained. This phenomenon, known as Carry-over, is that raises question marks for the following year.
But what does this mean in practice? It means that even if the Greek economy “catches” decent growth rates next year and continues to overcome the eurozone, the lower denominator resulted in lesser perfectly sizes and sizes. narrower budgetary margin.
And the lower the “pie” the potential narrows. TThe main one, however, is that The smallest GDP burdens debt ratio limiting the progress that has been made and making markets more sensitive to “bad” news about the Greek economy.
Simply put, this means that if the nominal GDP of 2025 is 242.4 billion euros and the debt of about 361.2 billion, then with growth of 2.3% in 2025 the debt/GDP ratio drops to 149.1%. But if growth is 0.3 points, GDP reaches around € 241.7 billion and debt/GDP ratio rises to 149.5%. That is, from a “small” divergence in the rhythm, the index gets worse about half a unit.