Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos is to submit the new state budget to Greek Parliament on Friday with a huge 30- to 50-million-euro “hole” even before it is unveiled. The Euro Working Group is to give its approval for the disbursement of 12 bln euros benchmarked for Greece (2-bln-euro subtranche + 10 bln euros for the recapitalization of Greek banks) kicking off the battle for the second round of measures that come attached with another 1-bln-euro check.

In an effort to achieve a 0.5% GDP surplus for 2016, the government announced an excise duty on wine on Thursday at 20 cents per liter from the initial 40 cents that had been proposed. Furthermore, gamblers will find themselves paying 0.5 cents more per game. These new tax hikes will manage to increase the revenue yield by 500 million euros.

There is still despair in a frantic search to tuck in measures that would cover the budgets shortfall. Even so, the 30- to 50-million-euro home is just a drop in the ocean compared to the new taxes foreseen for 2016 that are aimed to scrape 5 billion euros.

Tsakalotos is discussing the next measures for Greece in a meeting with the representatives of the country’s lenders (EC, ECB, ESM, IMF) at a well-known hotel in the center of Athens before lenders depart from Athens. The new packet will include tough austerity measures such as “red” loans, social security, public sector salaries,  increases to agriculture tax and other regulations such as an increase to leasing tax.