Finance Ministry frets over extended closure of food services

The Finance Ministry is concerned not only about the impact of the lockdown extension on economic activity, but also on the revenues and expenditure of the state budget.

The prospect of the reopening of the food service sector is still remote.

The duration of this second lockdown for restaurants, cafés and bars may well be far greater than that of the first one in spring, meaning not only the loss of consumption tax revenues, but also the need for a significant level of additional state support to a very large economic sector and its employers and employees, which run up to many hundreds of thousands across Greece.