Greek Tourism Confederation (SETE) President Yiannis Retsos met in Athens with European Economic and Financial Affairs Commissioner Pierre Moscovici in Athens.
The meeting took place at SETE offices and was hailed as the starting point of a series of actions that the Confederation will launch in the near future to strengthen its position and that of Greek tourism in Brussels.
The Commissioner highlighted the contribution of tourism to economic development, stressed the importance of cooperation between all the parties involved in the development of Greece’s economy.
During the meeting, Mr Retsos referred to the decisive role played by the tourism sector throughout the crisis, in an effort to assist the national economy’s recovery.
SETE’s chief also focused on the over-taxation of the sector, highlighting, amongst other burdens, the increase in VAT on accommodation services from 6.5% to 13%, on passenger transport from 8% to 24%, on businesses from 26% to 29% as well as that from the beginning of 2018 a residence tax has been imposed on the country’s tourist accommodation establishments while the reduced VAT rates in most of the Greek islands have also been abolished.
“At this moment, Greek tourism companies are burdened with the highest VAT rates compared to those of the most competitive countries,”the chairman of SETE said, and noted that “in order to improve the competitiveness of the sector, decisions should be taken in the direction of tax reduction, for all sectors of the tourism economy.”
After eight years of crisis, the next six months will be the “home stretch” of the memorandum era for Greece, European Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs Pierre Moscovici noted in an exclusive interview with the Athens-Macedonian News Agency (ANA) on Wednesday.
According to him, the “light at the end of the tunnel” is now clearly visible and Greece’s exit from the programme will also mean the end of memoranda and harsh austerity “provided responsible fiscal policies are pursued”.
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