Still preliminary, still only part of the picture, but it seems that something is actually moving: expenditure growing less, still positive though; revenues growing faster than predicted.
These are good news. They could be better? difficult, under the current situation; only expenditure if expenditure would be actually decreasing.
They could be worse? certainly.
Are we out of problems? no, but if the results prove to be robust in the final numbers, there is certainly hope of improvement.
Tomorrow will be an important test. Stay tuned to the news.
What else would we benefit from seeing published? any information that could verifiably (I repeat verifiably) show that economic growth could take off soon.
There are a few avenues to avoid unsustainable public finances: i) lower interest rates, ii) higher growth, iii) higher primary balances.
ReplyDeleteSmall open economies can: do little about i) (markets cannot really be beaten); strive for ii) in the medium run (more structural though); curbe fiscal imbalances to ensure iii) in the short run. It seems that many EU countries convincingly need to tackle iii), which will provide also additional credibility with the markets (being debt restructuring a riskier step towards the unknown).