Greek FinMin Euclid Tsakalotos over the weekend touched on the prospect of a new automatic spending cut mechanism to emerge after 2019, a process aimed to immediate rectify whatever fiscal deviations in the often haphazard executions of state budgets in Greece over previous decades.
Tsakalotos made the comment during debate in Parliament over the 2017 draft state budget, which was ratified on Saturday evening by MPs of the government coalition.
The new and possibly expanded spending cuts mechanism would be modeled along the lines of the current process agreed to by Athens, dubbed the “cutter” by the local opposition and the press. The concept is also known as budget sequestration.
Tsakalotos made the reference in answer to a question by the main opposition party’s rapporteur, saying the standing disagreements between the IMF and European creditors over fiscal targets in 2019 and thereafter could materialize into a new spending cuts mechanism.
