The public sector owes 6 billion euros to private entities

The state cannot pay its debts to individuals, although the memorandum and the Troika are pressuring the government not to delay these payments for longer than 90 days.

According to data from the Finance Ministry, the unpaid debt of the public sector to third parties between January and April only showed a marginal decline to 6.1 billion euros from 6.2 billion in the first three months of the year, based on data collected from almost all the agencies of the government (810 of 847).

According to figures released by the Finance Ministry, most debts ranging up to 2.54 billion appear in relation to pension funds. Hospitals are a close second with 1.7 billion (out of which only 120 million are old debts). Local authorities owe 738 million and other legal entities owe 206.9 million.

As for the central government, the largest amounts of debts appear in the Defense and Infrastructure ministries. Specifically, the ministries owe 892 million euros. Despite government threats to shut down any organizations whose financial data is not part of the Treasury’s records, 7 pension funds and 2 utility services have not given over their accounts, as well as several small private entities who have provided no records to the government.

According to the same data, the general government deficit within the last four months rose to 9.97 billion from 7.3 billion in the first quarter, of which the primary deficit amounted to 5.97 billion, up from 4 billion during the January-March quarter.