Within the context of the Greek Presidency of the Council of the European Union, the Alternate Minister of Finance, Christos Staikouras, has had, meetings with officials of the European Union institutions related to Budget issues (21/01/2014).

In particular, the Alternate Minister had a meeting with the Director General of the General Secretariat of the Council, responsible for Economic Relations and Competitiveness, Carsten Pillath, and discussed, inter alia, the implementation of Budget 2014, the guidelines of the Budget for 2015 as well as the reform of the Own Resources System.

Additionally, he also met the Head of the Parliamentary Committee of Budgetary Control, Michael Theurer, with whom he discussed, among other things, issues relating to the procedure of the discharge of the Commission for the management of the financial year 2012, as well as initiatives in order to combat fraud in the implementation of EU-funded projects.

Moreover, in both meetings, Christos Staikouras developed the priorities of the Greek Presidency, stressing that the main target in the field of economic policy is to achieve and ensure a balance between fiscal stability and development/growth policies so as to definitively strengthen employment and stimulate cohesion at European and regional level.

Towards this direction move the guidelines of the EU Budget for 2015, which will be attempted to be built on realistic assumptions and estimates, so that the distribution of EU funds could meet the real needs and prevent the occurrence of several corrective amendments, as was the case in the past.