Greek Prime Minister urges farmers to scale back protests, promises payments by year-end

Macro/Political:

• The trade balance in October 2025 presented a deficit of EUR 2,653.8mn compared to a deficit of EUR 3,250.7mn in October 2024, recording a drop of 18.4%. The total value of imports amounted to EUR 6,908.4mn (-5% y-o-y) while the total value of exports was EUR 4,254.6mn (+5.8% y-o-y). The deficit of the trade balance, for the 10-month period from January to October 2025 amounted to EUR 27,104.5 mn in comparison with EUR 28,830.2 mn for the corresponding period of the year 2024, recording a drop of 6%.
  Source: ELSTAT

• Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Monday urged protesting farmers to scale down their blockades, while reaffirming that substantial payments and other support measures would be delivered by the end of December. Farmers have been staging road blockades across Greece to protest an estimated EUR 600 mn shortfall in subsidies from the European Union and other payments that remain frozen amid a corruption investigation into the distribution of agricultural aid. 
  Source: Kathimerini

Macro/Political: 

• The Ministry of Finance has accepted certain amendments to the tax reform bill but insists that these changes must remain limited in order to avoid undermining public finances. As a result, the tax-free income bracket is expected to increase only modestly from the originally proposed EUR 20,500.
  According to Phileleftheros, the ministry has evaluated the opposition parties’ proposals to assess their fiscal impact and is expected to submit revised personal income tax bills to Parliament today. The government aims to minimise revenue losses, noting that every EUR 1,000 increase in the tax-free allowance costs the state approximately EUR 30 mn.
  Source: PhileNews