On 7th September, Kyriakos Mitsotakis made his annual speech as Prime Minister at the International Fair in Thessaloniki. This is a traditional event at which the leader of the government in power aims to explain its past actions and set out its vision for the future. With his government reelected by a handsome majority in 2023 and the prospect of three uninterrupted years to carry out its future plans, Mr Mitsotakis was relieved of the need to justify his position and was able to concentrate on a catalogue of the changes introduced in the past 15 months, and to articulate a wide-ranging vision for a country which will be “more just and productive, more social, greener, more digital” by the end of his current term in 2027.
The following is the full text of the speech, which was livestreamed on YouTube and can found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4g3mRrrTHs. The subtitles in the text are ours.
Your Holiness, Vice-Chancellor – thank you for your German precision in keeping to the allotted time – dear Minister, Regional Governor, Mr Mayor, ladies and gentlemen.
I am here again in Thessaloniki and at the Thessaloniki International Fair for the 6th year as Prime Minister, at the end of the first 12 months of a new governmental term and having before us three years of a clear political course, to remind you where we were and where we have arrived, what we have achieved in 2024, what 2025 is bringing and chiefly where we will be going in 2027.
We also stand here today with much more experience, armed with knowledge from managing successive crises, which we got through together, but with our hand firmly on the tiller. Many and different challenges: at the beginning the immigrant invasions and the pandemic, subsequently the energy and climatic challenges, obstacles which however made us stronger.
We are, finally, here with you again, determined to honour your confidence, putting into practice the commitments for which the citizens chose this government 15 months ago, so that 2027 will find Greece more just and productive, more social, greener, more digital. A European country with its own Commissioner, Apostolos Tsitsikostas, in his last appearance as a successful Regional Governor for Macedonia at the International Fair.
In 2027 we will have a state which will have recovered the lost ground of the era of the bailouts, will uproot pathogens which prevent it from progressing, and step by step will gain an impetus which will transform collective development into personal success. With the next generation feeling that it can live better than the previous one.
I know that this involves a long journey of transformation on all levels – we have, I have named it “multidimensional modernisation” – a process whose results will only become clear once they reach fruition. They therefore presuppose both patience and time.
However, the road to national progress has opened. And we must tread it more quickly. Because in spite of those who see the country through their own dark perspective, Greece is changing, not only since 2019, when the citizens were relieved of 50 taxes and the minimum wage went from 650 to 830 euros, with incomes being supported, with the national economy developing, continually reducing unemployment, breaking records in investments and exports.
Rather, ladies and gentlemen, Greece is changing from year to year. And allow me, by way of a start, to recall what I said last year from this same platform and what commitments I made, and may you be the judges of how faithfully I have fulfilled them.
Commitments fulfilled
Thus, at the time I made a commitment that we would shortly recover investment grade. And we made it. That the incomes of public employees would increase in the first year and pensions in the second. And they increased. That three-year increments would be reintroduced, while the basic salary would be increased once more. All those things came about.
But how? How did they come about? Not with loans, but with a consistency which is now producing surpluses instead of deficits, reinforcing incomes on healthy economic foundations, something which then allowed me to promise more teachers. And so it happened. In the last year alone there were more than 10,000 permanent hirings. Which has brought the total to almost 40,000 since 2019.
A year ago I also told you that we are continuing to create new jobs with better salaries. And the latest data from ERGANI [the government’s employment database] show that we have had 500,000 new jobs since 2019. I repeat, 500,000, half a million.
Last year I promised that despite the economic difficulties there would be support for Public Health Service doctors. And amongst other things, we have increased the amount per duty period by 20 per cent.
Last year, from this platform, I promised a transparent system of selection of public administrators by examinations of the ASEP [central recruitment board]. And I remember the suspicion and reservations which there were then. We explained why party appointments to organisations with frontline services such as hospitals needed to be eliminated. It was unthinkable until recently, because often the parties saw the state as something to be plundered. This was put into practice by our government.
Finally I told you that we would take measures to make the tax system more just, first of all with a balanced intervention in the self-employed sector. This we did. We did it despite the political cost. We did it because it was the right thing to do. In the meantime, cash registers have been linked with POS terminals. Digital bookkeeping is now in operation. Electronic payments have been extended to include the IRIS system.
They told us specifically that linking the POS terminals to cash registers could not be done, but now that is happening. Together with unprecedented institutional landmarks such as non-state universities and postal voting. They are breakthroughs which formerly seemed impossible. They became possible. They were not the only ones.
After 100 years as I had undertaken, the juridical map has been transformed. We united the district courts and the courts of first instance throughout the country. A transformation which had been outstanding for a century, enabling decisions now to be given more quickly.
I stated last year that we would introduce the digital work card and we implemented that. We have introduced it in quite a few sectors and others are following. What is the result, ladies and gentlemen? Declared overtime increased immediately and impressively, protecting workers from the illegalities of employers.
So there are many things, both large and small, which we said we would do and which we have done within 12 months, from the panic button to electronic admission to sports grounds and the MyCoast app on beaches.
These are bold initiatives. Some of them may be considered small, but please note that they are initiatives which change behaviour.
This year, for example, and despite the initial problems, 840,000 plots of land were cleaned by their owners. In this way it becomes common property that climate change requires the combined efforts of all the forces of Greek society.
And something more: whenever it was needed, we did not hesitate to tax the windfall profits of businesses so as to shield society against persistent inflation.
We did not take account of the reactions to the high fines on those who found an opportunity for profiteering on the pretext of inflation. A fight which, I would emphasise, will continue until the market has returned to normality.
I have said it many times: changes which benefit the many may inconvenience a few, or more than a few. If these are the powerful ones and they also have means of communication, then it is perhaps reasonable and to be expected that they will bring them into play against the government, with false impressions that they think will amount to pressure. They should know, however, that they are wasting their efforts, for we are only accountable to the Greek people.
Ladies and gentlemen, the examples I have described from the 2024 budget – and there are many others I have not mentioned – constitute, I believe, the best response to a few complainers who are now taking refuge behind the claim of reformative fatigue.
Many changes which have been quoted rather signify the opposite, while the same applies to those who unwisely promote the myth of the so-called curse of the second term. The facts contradict them.
We are implementing without delay a programme which the citizens approved emphatically in 2023 in two electoral contests. It is a plan founded on the conquests of our first four years which is continuing with the steps we have taken in 2024 in order to arrive at 2027, via all that I will announce today for 2025.
I am speaking of a full road map towards the future, which I am happy that we are sharing today with the [International Fair’s] honoured country, Germany. A valuable colleague in our bilateral relations, but also a stable fellow traveller in the common challenge of a Europe which will claim a dominant place in a difficult, a complex, transformed world, with constantly changing global relations.
Dear Robert [Habeck, German vice-chancellor], welcome to Thessaloniki and thank you for the strong German presence at the Thessaloniki International Fair.
Our partners in the European Union also know – and the international companies recognise it – that the Greek economy is now on firm foundations, with very healthy volume in the fiscal and banking sectors.
An economy geared towards investments and exports, with a clear transition of production towards industry and towards activities with high added value, with the result that the existential challenges of yesterday, as I would call them, are giving way to new, complex issues.
Ladies and gentlemen, the [country’s] needs in 2019 were different, with an economy essentially struggling to emerge from intensive care; today’s needs are different from those.
The issue now is the intensification of growth. An equally important issue is its balanced redistribution, not only to all the social levels but to all the country’s regions. This is what I have many times called “the need for double integration”.
Challenges to integration and growth
And allow me to dwell briefly on nine of these new challenges, which simultaneously constitute strategic directions. I hasten to do it at the start of my speech, believing that the internal logic and consistency of our choices will be more more accurately interpreted. To put it differently, it is a question of principles which pervade all the measures which will be heard later.
First and most important of all, the marriage of national growth with the increase in citizens’ incomes both in the private and public sectors and in pensions. In conjunction, of course, with the operation of competition for continually better prices. Because macroeconomic growth makes no sense for the citizen – I hasten to add in parenthesis that the Greek economy grew in the second quarter of 2024 at the second fastest pace in the European Union – this macroeconomic growth has no meaning for the citizen, if in the end available income does not increase and inequalities are not reduced.
Second, increased employment, especially amongst women and the young. It is something which, moreover, concerns our social security system, with the basic direction, the basic priority being the closer connection between education, professional training and the needs of businesses, to provide the required skills. Which as we speak today are lacking from the labour market.
Thirdly, the need to improve the productive and technological maturity of our economy in all its sectors: in the primary sector, in manufacturing, in services. And this double development will serve a central aspiration of ours, which is none other than the reinforcement of the extroversion and innovation of Greek businesses.
The fourth priority, an even quicker but – note this – fairer green transition, so that the sought-after energy self-sufficiency through sun, wind and water will begin to be reflected more systematically in families’ and businesses’ energy bills. Clean energy must also become cheap energy. Because sustainability is not only an ecological imperative, it is also an economic choice.
Fifthly, another point at issue is the reduction of the side effects of rapid growth, when these sometimes manifest themselves without planning, control and rules. We have seen it, fortunately in very few of our islands, with the cruise ships. However, I would say the same for infrastructure, especially in places which receive large loads of visitors for particular periods of time.
And completely connected, as the sixth priority, with the above concept is the balanced organisation of public space. By way of parenthesis, Mr Mayor, the best example is the remodelling of the Thessaloniki International Fair and how we can link new modern uses with a large metropolitan park for the city of Thessaloniki.
This means balanced development with respect for the environment, respect for public space but with a modern developmental dimension. With that in view, any zoning change needs to be effected with respect for the environment and tradition, especially in the particularly beautiful settlements of our islands and our mountains.
As we have said many times, the foundation stone of development, of tourist development, must be the protection of the unparalleled natural and cultural environment of our country. After all, that is finally our great comparative advantage.
Seventh, the effective management of demographics. A problem which threatens all the western communities and clearly is a complex, multidimensional issue. However, we cannot exclude from that, among our initial measures, the support of young families, especially as regards the first home – I will return to that later – as well as a better quality of life in the third age.
Eighth, the great danger of the 21st century, and I mean the unprecedented pressures which climate change is exercising and will exercise on infrastructure, on citizens’ wealth and on the public finances of states. With natural disasters of greater intensity than we have known hitherto. Unfortunately also with correspondingly great damage. It is a given fact that must imbue all our policies.
And ninth, finally, the strict fiscal framework which the European Union has imposed, with members obliged on the one hand to produce annual surpluses but now, I would emphasise, the ceiling on increases in government expenditure at around 3% plus per year. Exceeding which will again lead with mathematical certainty to supervision, countermeasures and new taxes.
Fiscal responsibility
Ladies and gentlemen, the last prescription, i.e. the need for fiscal responsibility, obliges me to make clear that I don’t have with me today any bag of uncosted benefits, but only proposals for useful and productive choices. All the more when already eight states, among them great economies such as Italy and France, have already been placed under supervision by the European Commission for excessive expenditure. And I personally will not allow such a thing to happen in Greece, and that is also the clear message to the institutions and international investors.
Consequently, our expenses for 2025 are finely balanced, and can be divided into three categories, the first being defence. Here, [expenditure] will reach something over €1.6 billion in 2025. It is increased by €850 million in relation to the previous year because in 2025 we shall be taking delivery of the first Belh@rra frigate, the Kimonas. Another €1 billion will relate to the increase in military expenses and €1 billion will be available for targeted social categories.
Clear figures, clear priorities, clear proposals: first, middle income support and the protection of families and the most vulnerable; second, combating the housing problems; and third, the support of healthy entrepreneurship.
Thus from 1st January 2025 there will be new increases to more than 2 million pensions, on the basis of inflation and GDP, from 2.2% to 2.5%. While from April the minimum wage will increase from the €830 it is today, with the aim of reaching €950 as we have promised by April of 2027. It is a development which will automatically take with it three-year increments and many allowances.
From the extraordinary levy on refineries this December, shortly before Christmas, €243 million will be available as special support for nearly 2 million of our vulnerable citizens: 670,000 pensioners with incomes up to €1,600 who still have the personal difference will receive up to €200, while 767,000 people eligible for child support will receive an extra instalment, 220,00 eligible for disabled support from OPEKA and EFKA [national insurance schemes] will receive €200 extra. The same amount will go to 35,000 uninsured elderly. And 205,000 people eligible for the guaranteed minimum income will receive an extra 50 per cent in December. In the public sector, finally, from next spring nearly 700,000 employees will begin to see new annual increases, which will gradually reach €100 a month, so that the salaries of public sector workers do not fall short of the minimum wage. Because incomes need to be bolstered both in the private and the public sectors.
At the same time, however, they also need to be applied in targeted actions where these are called for. Therefore, this commitment is supplemented with two more measures which relate to tens of thousands of front-line workers in health and social security.
From now on, therefore, and responding to a long-standing demand of Public Health Service doctors, the pay for duty periods in the PHS will be taxed independently at 22%, which will increase the average income of doctors by €130, sometimes more.
I would note also that only the day before yesterday a joint ministerial decision was signed which gives a major income boost of up to €7,200 a year for doctors who staff health units in remote areas.
This is our own practical reply to the real problems of the nation, leaving to others blind protests and facile impressions.
At the same time, responding to a long-standing demand of our uniformed personnel, there is 20% increase in remuneration for night shifts in the Armed Forces, the Coastguard, Police and Fire Service. A recognition, albeit small, of their contribution, which – as the financial staff know well – I arrived at by exhausting every fiscal margin. Because those who wear the national coat of arms must feel that the country is always beside them.
However, better income also means less of a [financial] burden, and for this reason I consider exceptional one more intervention which I am announcing: the reduction by one percentage point of insurance contributions instead of the half a per cent which we originally planned.
It is an important measure which will bring relief to both workers and employers. By 2027, Greece will have reduced the non-salary burden by six points. Six points within 8 years. We will be below the European average.
Finally, as we had promised, in 2025, the business tax for every self-employed person or individual business will be fully abolished.
While there will also be some improvements in the minimum taxable amount. Responding to many requests which we had from the Greek Regions, we are halving the minimum taxable amount in regions with 1,500 inhabitants instead of 500, which will significantly support villages and settlements in the Greek countryside. And the criterion of the maximum wage of the worker will not be calculated additionally, but only comparatively.
And finally, we are abolishing the special tax on landlines, which amounts to 5 per cent on optical fibre connections with speeds over 100Mbps. It is a move aimed at developing the digitalisation of Greek businesses, of Greek households, but also but also at the support of high-speed broadband. At the same time it provides relief to tens of thousands of users.
Ladies and gentlemen, now heading towards the 8th year of government, we are obliged to highlight every step which takes us a little further forward, from where we were in 2019 and even in 2023, every policy which closes the wounds of the crisis and heals its causes so that we never again live through such an adventure, remembering not only were we want to get to but from how far behind we started.
We are duty bound to draw attention to the difficulties, we are obliged to find solutions which are outside the box. Whenever that is required, we will also put a brake on the tyranny of instant satisfaction which runs through all modern societies. While at the same time, yes, we will explain that Greece cannot become Switzerland or Denmark in terms of income or the operation of government in five years. However it can be continually improved, with target-setting, with planning, with measurement and with continual review.
Please note that I recognise legitimate expectations. I know that every small victory of ours automatically generates a greater demand. Also I know that the first misstep by the government immediately becomes a source of doubt. These are phenomena which also amplify our own existing failures, all the more so in a party-political climate where the central political force for stability becomes a political “lightning conductor” for every adverse event.
All that I understand, but it is a mistake for the opposition to export into the public sphere its own inadequacy and disappointment. As it would be a mistake for us to let any weaknesses muddy the greater picture of the country. Because miracles are for magicians, while in real life only steady progress counts. And that is true of what has happened and what is happening.
Faster, fairer, more effective
Faster, fairer, more effective. That is the message which I personally received from the last elections, in which I would remind those who see things rather pessimistically, that Nea Dimokratia came first in the fifth consecutive national contest and indeed with a difference of 14 percentage points from the second party.
That demand for more and faster results I absolutely endorse. That is why at the beginning I spoke of the conjunction between development and income. Because only then will collective progress be translated into personal prosperity. And only when we come face to face with major problems such as the demographic can we say that we are really serving the citizen.
Starting from the last, I want to remind you that for the family this government has already increased the maternity allowance up to €3,500. To remind you that the maternity allowance now lasts for nine months and varies according to the level of the minimum wage. To remind you that this is the government which abolished the tax on parental benefits. This is the government which simultaneously increased the tax-free band by €1,000 for each child,
These measures, therefore, comprise incentives on three levels. On the one hand, increasing support for young parents by another €20 million, with more vouchers than ever before: 173,000 vouchers, 20,000 new places in childcare centres. And on the other, we want also to give incentives to businesses to provide for the latter, for a harmonious coexistence of work and family life.
I have seen many businesses, chiefly large ones, which have expressed an interest in supporting their workers who have children. From this year the employers who facilitate matters for their staff with benefits of up to €5,000 a year for new parents, will be excused the tax on this amount – because we want businesses to be allies in this effort – which will be increased for every new family member.
On another level, the rights of families with three children will match those with multiple children, now regardless of income: from public-sector appointments and admission to higher education institutions, to participation in social tourism programmes. And of course with the existing initiatives such as the “Neighbourhood Babysitters”, which will be extended with vouchers of up to €500 for each child,
Finally, a new commitment is aimed at boosting the family with measures in many different sectors. The responsible ministry will presenting the details in the next few weeks.
However, let me point out some of them which I consider of particular value: the immediate abolition of the 15% tax on health insurance for children up to 18 years old, free fertility tests for women from 30 to 35 years, as well as the simplification of Public Health System coverage of assisted reproduction. A much wider programme than that which I am presenting today is costed at a total of €250 million, and will be combined with the careful reform of our benefits policy.
Because when unemployment recedes there needs to be more motivation for work. When there is a recorded shrinking of the population we need to boost the family, and when inequalities persist we are obliged to protect the most vulnerable.
For this reason, from now on, unemployment benefits are being revised, chiefly so that they avoid being used as an alibi for poverty or undeclared work, channelling these benefits to those who really have need of them. If someone can find work – as they can today – they should not be dependent on unemployment benefit.
In addition, were are making fairer, more effective and targeted the three basic welfare benefits of OPEKA [the social security system]: the minimum guaranteed income, housing benefit and child benefit. We want to reduce child poverty in our country and this reformation will be presented by the responsible ministries next week, channelling the benefits to the really vulnerable, but also increasing the level of benefits and support where they are really needed, where there are real inequalities.
Ladies and gentlemen, our emphasis is also turning to the country’s production and especially to the primary sector, for which we have already done a lot. There is a lot more which we must do. Let me briefly mention what I believe are four significant interventions.
The first is the permanent establishment of the refund of the special tax on agricultural diesel. From 2025 – and for all the coming years – these amounts will be refunded. But how? In a fair and proportionate way, listening to the proposals of the farmers.
Secondly, we are establishing a flexible system for managing the red [non-performing] loans of farmers and cooperatives, so that in accordance with their capacities the interest rates can be reduced, part of the capital can be written off, and over time it can repaid with the possibility of refinance and definitive settlement of any ancillary charges. The country’s cooperatives know how important this initiative is.
Third, we want, with the support of the private sector and the banking system, to put in motion a generous programme which will reach €600 million for the increase of greenhouse cultivation in the country. The dynamic development of greenhouses rapidly increases productivity, greatly reducing the need for irrigation. We have very few greenhouses in our country in comparison with other European nations. However, if one looks at the figures relating to productivity and water consumption, it is really staggering the progress we can make in the primary sector, and how significant this existential wager is for agriculture in the conditions of the climate crisis.
And fourthly, we will work together with the ministry for Agricultural Development, which as you know has many idle plots of agricultural land, and we will introduce an innovative scheme of exchange and quid pro quo for these idle public land plots with investors who will undertake their cultivation, building – I emphasise – very large-scale greenhouses. We already have such things in our country, but exclusively for exportable agri-food products of high added value.
Housing and property
Ladies and gentlemen, after the measures for income and tax relief in the family and for farmers, allow me to dwell a little on issues of housing, a subject on which I can today officially announce that, after very laborious negotiations with the European Commission, the second “My Home” programme amounting to €2 billion is starting immediately with money from the Recovery Fund.
To add another 15,000, whether more young people or older couples, we will now extend the scope, we will go up to 50 years old, because I often hear complaints from the generation in their forties who bore all the weight of the crisis, that we excluded them from the programme and they have a right. The limit will be extended to 50 years old and the interest rate will be half the commercial one.
The first programme, Spiti mou (my house), was a great success and I often meet fellow citizens who feel great satisfaction that they were able to acquire their own house, paying mortgage instalments which are lower than they would be paying if they rented a house of similar dimensions.
But we are doing something more: we have once more secured €400 million from the Recovery Fund, to do what? Note this, loans of up to €20,000 at zero interest solely for the energy upgrading of 20,000 old houses, a programme which is running in parallel with Anakainizo-Enoikiazo (I renovate, I rent) and the other activities of the ministry of Energy.
At the same time, I want to remind you that the housing allowance has essentially been doubled, student housing support has also been increased for the new year, while the suspension of VAT on new building will apply also in 2025.
In this context we are also adding a new double scheme of incentives and disincentives which chiefly concerns unoccupied flats – and we have many unoccupied flats in our country – which if we could put them to use would enable us to substantially increase the availability of accommodation and reduce the pressures on rents.
Simultaneously however, these measures are also directed at the explosive development of short-term rentals. The state’s aim is that there should be a clear framework. I would emphasise that in no case do we wish to demonise this particular business activity, which besides brings significant income to property owners and the public purse.
Responding, therefore, to long-standing demands of the ownership associations, I am today announcing that any owner who rents out a flat which has hitherto been unoccupied, will be relieved of of the tax on rentals for three years. The same applies when it is converted from short-term to long-term rental. But conversely, there will be a new increased charge on agreements made via rental platforms, while there is an immediate ban on any new short-term rentals in the three central areas of Athens for at least one year.
The character of our neighbourhoods must not be spoiled, nor should one person’s right to profit hinder another’s right to accommodation. The responsible ministry will monitor the balance of rentals in each area where we could have a similar problem. It is time, moreover, for a new perspective on the essence of immovable property, with rights and obligations.
In this time of climate change, then, we are increasing to 20 per cent the discount on ENFIA [property tax] for owners who insure dwellings of up to €500,000 in value against natural disasters.
There is also the other side of the coin, however: more expensive properties will retain the discount of 10 per cent if they are insured, because for bigger properties which pay a large amount of ENFIA the 10 per cent discount will effectively cover the insurance premium. If they do not do it however, from April 2025 they will not receive compensation from the government in the case of damage.
And in the same context, all businesses with a turnover of more than €500,000 must obligatorily be insured against natural disasters. This is something which will also apply to new insurance agreements as well as the renewal of old ones for private and business vehicles. I emphasise that our vehicles too must be insured against natural disasters, because the climate crisis brings us face to face with personal and collective responsibility.
I guarantee that the government on its side will do what is necessary, but it demands an awakening from the citizens themselves. Just as volunteers join the fight in the case of a fire, and earthquake, a flood, so the owners of property themselves must be the first to protect them.
The government, however, will make its own intervention in another vital area. I am referring to school buildings and I know well that the municipalities, Mr Mayor, are having difficulty in meeting their obligations. So today, I want to announce a new programme of €250 million for the renovation of hundreds of schools and I would like this programme to be named the Marietta Giannakou Programme, in honour of an iconic figure of our party, who served public education with passion, self-sacrifice and love.
I am not talking, Minister, of earth-shaking changes, but painting, plastering, toilets, sports facilities etc. Think of how many schools I go to in the regions where I see abandoned basket-ball courts or football fields, which could be fixed with a little money. The aspect of thousands of schools will be changed by such a programme.
The funds I mentioned will come from the Public Expenditure Programme. However, my aim is for that amount to be increased significantly via an invitation which we will issue for significant private funding. Because I will repeat: for the country’s rich the time has come for them to shoulder a greater portion of the responsibilities in their homeland’s modernisation, as indeed did all the big benefactors of the past.
Business and productivity
Ladies and gentlemen, in 2025 there will be important developments for boosting economic productivity, with emphasis on the growth of businesses, but chiefly on their extroversion, the strengthening of manufacturing and a trend towards exportable industrial products.
The manufacturing sector has already reached 14 per cent of GDP in 5 years. The best answer to those who say that “Greece does not produce anything” – though no doubt we can do better – is: exportable products in the agri-food sector, the pharmaceutical industry which already, for those who do not know, covers significant needs of the European market, metals, building materials for the green cities of the future, equipment for renewable energy sources, shipbuilding, ship repairs, software applications, artificial intelligence, robotics, the defence industry, where we are supporting the significant innovation which is today being developed by small Greek companies, product research units for multinational companies such as have already been established in Thessaloniki.
All these are sectors with comparative advantages for our economy and manpower. We therefore need to develop the conditions for them to acquire new impetus, with the aim over 5 to 10 years of adding €15 billion to the annual GDP and 150,000 more well-paid jobs for knowledge workers. Let me give an example: Greek start-ups are engaged in issues of civil protection, timely location of fires and better prediction of how they will develop.
So in this direction we are already significantly expanding the incentives for innovation, for company mergers and for exports. The Ministerial Cabinet has already approved an important law with tax reductions up to – please note – 315 per cent [sic], under conditions for investments in research.
We are reducing to €100,000 the minimum level of capital for a company which emerges from the reorganisation of smaller ones, so as to provide incentives for mergers and economies of scale.
I would remind you also that this has been preceded by the reduction in capital gains tax, the halving of the tax on stock transactions, but also tax relief on the interest from government bonds.
These are developments which are now being reinforced by yet another initiative. Stamp duty will shortly be a thing of the past on hundreds of transactions: from the interest on business loans or insurance transactions to import credits and the budgets for technical works, and from the creation of non-profit legal entities to the simple issue of permits for exercising a profession. An anachronism which is finally coming to an end.
Finally, changes are coming for the Golden Visa. Its orientation can now be shifted from property to investments. (We have – rightly – increased the thresholds for granting them through property purchases in popular areas.) This prerogative will relate to capital which is imported for funding start-ups. Thus, someone can get a Golden Visa if they invest €250,000, not in property but in a start-up enterprise. It is an initiative which will complete the array of our activities to support entrepreneurship.
And one more major institutional change: I am referring to the immediate foundation of a new national investment fund on the lines of similar bodies in Europe. Its role will be to provide incentives through dynamic initiatives, especially in sectors with high added value, by covering long-term investments in places where the market cannot intervene. Thus the fund will act either as joint investor or as minority investor or as adviser to introduce hybrid instruments in areas such as technology, artificial intelligence, in raw materials, networks, sectors of the future. For its activities in these areas, it will be supported initially by the Superfund with €300 million. Our aim is for that capital to be increased substantially over time.
Two more important initiatives for a Greece with fewer regional inequalities. From the end of September and subsequent to the – as I believe – very successful presentations which we made here in Thessaloniki for Central Macedonia, we will continue this national strategy for the creation of 12+1 for Attica regional development plans, with thousands of small and medium projects in every municipality, every mountain and island community, with accountability through a special internet application, so that the local communities can participate in this great effort to reduce regional inequalities.
While, in the name of entrepreneurship, we want to plan a major new programme of simplification, identifying the 15 most-time consuming bureaucratic processes which burden businesses today. We want to reduce the administrative load by another 25 per cent, chiefly on businesses which are export-oriented. With a rigorous monitoring of the stages, the unnecessary obstacles – and I can assure you that unfortunately there are still many – with the use of digital technology, so as to finally put an end to their needless inconvenience.
The way ahead
Dear friends of Thessaloniki and Macedonia, from this platform some years ago I spoke for the first time of an agreement of truth which should govern our relationship. And with this exactly as a guide, I declare that we are all in the service of the community, with our contribution being proportionate but our purpose always creative.
With this reasoning I want to announce two more measures. Both are related to our tourism, which this year is going from one record to another. We are having another extremely successful year for tourism. Tourism supports the economy with important resources and jobs, however it exacts its own share of social costs.
Indeed we have been very concerned – we have discussed it intensively with the minister and with local bodies – by the image presented by cruises on certain of our islands during some months of the year. For this reason we are imposing a cruise tax for every passenger who disembarks at a Greek harbour, high at Santorini and Mykonos, lower at the rest, with a scale according to the period. While from April to October the Climate Crisis Resilience Fee is increased proportionately for hotels, holiday accommodation, and property rented via online platforms.
A significant proportion of the income derived from this will be returned to local communities. It is important these should be better organised, so as to support their infrastructure against the load imposed on them every summer.
I would say that it is one more manifestation of the planned joint progress of citizens and the state which clearly must be broadened if we wish to win the major national challenges.
Their foundations, however, exist. If one thinks of subjects which were formerly taboo but are now considered a natural development: non-state universities, the common requirement for more security and the support of the police in this effort, closer collaboration, under strict conditions, of the public and private sectors, and of course the convergence of opinions around the search for the best result regardless of political leanings.
All these are silent but steady steps of a community which is maturing, which is aware of what it has lived through, which knows whether it is living better today, but chiefly which knows how it wants to live tomorrow.
This is a community in which I have confidence. And in this direction, declaring from the beginning that the obstacles before us were and remain many: with war in the heart of the continent and fire in the underbelly of our region, Turkey remains unpredictable, Europe is seeking its new identity, and the United States is exporting its internal uncertainties to the whole planet.
On the other hand, imported consequences, long-standing pathogens but also unforeseen events intermittently obscure our nation’s skies. Indeed, inflation has for some time been eating away at household purses and the cash of many businesses. Yes, the state needs time to change, with moments such as the recent fire in Attica which clenched everyone’s hearts.
For this reason, and to those who talk lightly about arrogance, I would counter that no-one has the monopoly of social sensitivity. I am the first to enter the fray against bad news. I am the first to be irritated when a government which has made great steps digitally is betrayed by irresponsible acts which cause accidents, allowing unfit fairground rides to operate.
I am the first to know, when some sick person is having trouble in the Public Health Service, how bad we feel and how bad they feel, when the Public Health Service has meanwhile demonstrated its great capacities during the pandemic. I am the first to be angry and sad when a state which has managed to put out 4,000 forest fires is hurt by the one which got away.
So the upward path will have disturbances, but it is a one-way street. There are and there will be storms, in other words; without doubt, however, the national craft is demonstrating that it can overcome the waves without losing its way.
And I ask sincerely: what hand might be capable of holding steady the helm of the national ship, if not that of the government, until we finally arrive together at the safe harbour of the Greece of 2027?
With an economy, with a GDP of over €260 billion, with unemployment below 8 per cent, with inflation at 2 per cent, with exports being well above 50 per cent of GDP, with investments more than double those which we [formerly] received, with the average wage, as we promised, at €1,500 and the minimum wage at €950, with social security contributions, as I said, reduced by 6 per cent, with annual increases to public sector employees and pensioners.
Moreover, in 2027 this country will have 156 renovated health centres, 93 hospitals, dozens of new emergency departments. It will have more doctors. And yes, I believe that very shortly we will be ready to have the final confirmation from the European Commission for another important initiative. We will get €51 million from the Recovery Fund and we will channel it into free – I repeat free – afternoon operations, giving relief to 37,000 of our citizens. Those who have been waiting the longest to have an operation.
From 2027 this Greece which we want to get to more quickly, more fairly, more effectively, will also have a completed land registry. A tremendous change, which has been outstanding since the creation of the Greek state. It will have implemented perhaps the biggest unseen reform, which we seldom talk about, and I am referring to the local and special urban plans which are already being put in motion throughout the nation.
Only this is the definitive solution to tackle outstanding legal issues and to reach absolute visibility as to what we can build, where we can build it, taking account of the peculiarities of each locality. It is the first time in history that such a major effort has taken place in a land where in 2027 participation in renewable energy sources will have significantly increased, because we have inexhaustible natural resources – sun wind and water.
In 2027 [we will have] schools which teach technology but will also use it to teach without the computer competing with the book. In an environment of secure and everyday legality, using technology with apps such as “MyCoast”.
Shortly we will also be ready to announce a corresponding initiative for the protection of public space, so that we can truly impose the rule of law everywhere.
A Greece in which the citizen having recourse to Justice will really find it and much more quickly. We have done all the important reforms which make us optimistic that we will significantly speed up the waiting times for justice.
With more infrastructure, with more aerial and terrestrial means of civil protection, with the AIGIS programme. With a public television service which, exploiting the great transformation of the past 5 years, where there has been a truly objective and high-quality public television and not a party political mouthpiece, will finally become the centre for information, culture and entertainment that we want.
A Greece with many more electric buses like those which have already started to run on the streets of Thessaloniki. With the Metro traversing Thessaloniki. (We will welcome it together, finally, on 30th November). With another new airport at Kastelli in Crete, with modern road systems, with updated ports.
A homeland with impregnable frontiers, with the three Belh@rra frigates, with our Rafales, with the order for F-35s getting under way, with the upgraded F-16 Vipers.
This is the Greece of 2027. These are the things that I promised you when you placed your trust in us twice in 2023, and these we will turn into practice, because this party and this government honours the commitments it has made to the Greek people.
To those therefore who talk about “reformist laxity”, I will say again: the facts reply that this government is operating and producing, not with gimmicks or with momentary impressions, but with methodical work, with results which sometimes are slow to appear but do so when they have matured, chiefly however with strict schedules, with specific goals which are built from day to day.
Ladies and gentlemen, perhaps I have gone on too long, but I will close with two brief thoughts. When the first Thessaloniki International Fair opened its doors in 1926 the visitors would have found it hard to believe that it would accompany the country, reflecting both its good and its bad moments. Let us not forget that then the national challenge was the refugee issue, but also political stability, since governments were changing one after the other, until Eleftherios Venizelos was able to bring some political equilibrium.
And this eternal succession of catastrophes and triumphs we are today called upon to transform into a course of security and progress, with changes which consolidate the previous achievements, laying the foundations of the next ones until the country is no longer threatened by retrogressions, nor however allowing temporary obstacles, which there will always be, to invalidate the overall direction.
Our homeland, thanks to the forces of patriotic responsibility, of reason, of liberalism, of European pragmatism, has won vital battles in recent years, with Nea Dimokratia in the front line. That is why we are the most resilient force since the restoration of democracy. With roots in our values, with a very strong ideological trunk, with branches which spread out to everyone. We achieved victories which kept us on the right side of history, kept us within the European family.
My own mission, now that we are closing the wounds of the crisis, is to treat the reasons which caused it, with dozens, hundreds of small and large changes. They are often small and large “revolutions of the self-evident”. They will bring us closer to Europe, they will permit us finally to live better,
Before us there are opening out more than 1,000 days of clear, open political time, until the spring of 2027. It is an opportunity for us to complete what we are already building, on a foundation of political stability, a key characteristic which today is lacking even in strong states such as France.
And believe me, the experience of five years and the knowledge of the preparation for those which follow, these make me optimistic. It is a question of deepening the relationship of trust which has been forged between state and citizens over the past few years. The country needs to pick up speed, with safety but with hope. And indeed, all it needs is for each of us individually to broadcast the same message of optimism which is demanded of us by the party, the country and the circumstances.
We owe it, moreover, to Nea Dimokratia, which has a birthday along with the 3rd Hellenic Republic, so that, just as in 1974 our party, with its founder the Macedonian Konstantinos Karamanlis, played a leading role in the Greece of Freedom and Europe, so today our party may become the guide to the new era.
A country with strength greater than its size, with prosperity in its every corner, for every one of its citizens. I am speaking of a homeland fortified against its opponents but also against the climate crisis, which will however stride boldly into the future, making both collective and individual progress, in other words a country where those who wake up early for work will taste the fruits of their labours and where their children will have the right to the dream of a better life than their parents.
Thank you.