Julia Chatterley: The EU announced plans for a Covid passport or certification that will allow travel within the bloc. The certificate would exempt its holders from measures such as quarantine and could be a lifeline for countries that are banking on tourism coming back this summer. One of those nations is Greece. Prime Minister, wonderful to have you on the show, thank you so much for joining us. You, if I remember correctly, were the first EU leader, way back in January, to call for this kind of certification. And if I remember correctly too, you received some pushback from some of the largest nations in the EU. How do you feel about this proposal today?
Kyriakos Mitsotakis: That is correct. Julia, I was the first to raise the issue of a Digital Green Certificate back in the middle of January, when it was absolutely clear to me that at some point, come spring or summer, Europeans will feel the real need to travel and we need to make it as easy as possible. At the time there was some pushback, indeed, but I’m very happy that today the Commission officially adopted this idea and has put forward its proposal for a Digital Green Certificate that will significantly facilitate travel, which is of course very important for a country such as Greece, which is very dependent on tourism. What the Digital Green Certificate is, is very simple, It’s a simple digital proof either that you have been vaccinated or that you have a negative test result, or that you have recovered from Covid. With such a certificate you will be allowed to enter a country such as Greece without any quarantines and without any additional testing at the border.
So, as more people get vaccinated I expect this digital green passport to become standard in travel. And I do expect that it will allow us to safely open for the summer holidays. We intend to start our summer season officially around May 15th. And as we expect many more people within the EU to get vaccinated in the second quarter, I also expect travel during the summer to pick up significantly. So, yes, I’m personally very satisfied that this proposal has been adopted by the Commission and has been, in principle, accepted by all the large EU member states.
Julia Chatterley: How significant a pickup are you expecting and how will this facilitate? Because I know you’ve already had to take steps on your own. You’ve signed an agreement with Israel already, one of the leaders of pushing out vaccines. You’re also working on agreements, I believe, with the UK and with Serbia who are also pushing ahead with vaccines. These are fantastic steps, but should you really be having to do this alone, Prime Minister?
Kyriakos Mitsotakis: Most of our tourism comes from within the EU, so it is very, very important to ensure that travelers within the EU will be able to travel as easily as possible and without any additional restrictions. Now, when it comes to travel from outside the EU, of course we’re open to putting in place a very, very similar arrangement. We are indeed, as you pointed out, starting with Israel because Israel has vaccinated more than 50% of its population. And Greece is a very popular destination for Israeli tourists. So, we essentially intend to replicate this arrangement with other countries that are not members of the EU and I expect this to be the standard tool that we will use in order to facilitate travel. As you pointed out we are very dependent on tourism. We did manage last year to open up safely. We received a fraction of the tourists that we would normally receive and we do expect a much better tourist season this year.
Apart from the Digital Green Certificate we will do everything within our power to make sure that visitors come to Greece in the safest way. So, we have in place all the necessary protocols to ensure that they will get the full Greek experience without any real compromises, but always putting their safety as our absolute priority. If we did it last year, we will certainly do it much better this year, now that we have all these additional tools at our disposal.
Julia Chatterley: And I know your own vaccination certification procedure is all digitized as well, because I’ve seen evidence of it. Can you address one of the criticisms and the concerns, I think, for your own people, which is that as a result of the tourism that you saw last year you saw a second wave of infections and something that you’d managed to handle before that incredibly well. What’s the risk that you see a further surge in Covid cases, even with the precautions that you’re putting in place?
Kyriakos Mitsotakis: All European countries have seen a second or third wave, some European countries are already in their fourth wave. We are seeing a surge right now, as we speak, which is the equivalent of the third wave that many European countries saw a couple of months ago. But, Julia, as more people get vaccinated I expect that we will be able to cope with Covid much more effectively. We are proceeding, I would almost say ahead of schedule. We’re one of the best countries within the EU when it comes to our vaccination pace. And we know that once we reach the milestone, which we expect to reach by the end of April, which is that we will have vaccinated everyone above 60 with at least one shot and also everyone with serious underlying conditions. Once we reach that point we take a lot of pressure off our hospitals.
So that is the point when we can anticipate a return to normal activities. It’s essentially what is happening in Israel today, Covid is still present, people still do get sick, but their healthcare system is able to cope without any significant difficulties. So this is where I think we will be in a couple of months. And this is, I think, how we will be able to deal with Covid, at least for the next six to 12 months.
Julia Chatterley: They also managed to ensure supplies, which is something that the EU has clearly struggled with. Even as you’re ready and set up when those supplies come in. You’ve been using Pfizer, I believe, and AstraZeneca’s vaccine. And in light of some of the recent concerns I saw that Greece didn’t suspend the use of AstraZeneca amid sort of confusing responses, I think, from various different nations, including the regulators in Europe. What’s your view on that handling of all this?
Kyriakos Mitsotakis: First of all let me point out that of course Europe is probably a couple of months behind the US and the UK in terms of its vaccination pace. There were clear benefits in terms of purchasing vaccines at the European level, especially for medium-sized countries, such as Greece, but of course there were also delays that were openly acknowledged by the Commission.
Allow me to point out that at the level of the European regulator there is no confusion whatsoever. The EMA has been very, very clear in telling us that the benefits of the AstraZeneca vaccine clearly outweigh the potential costs. And that is why Greece was one of the few countries that went against the trend and we are currently continuing with our AstraZeneca vaccination program. And we expect a decision by the EMA to be taken tomorrow. If the EMA tells us that we need to suspend the program, of course we will suspend it immediately. But frankly, Julia, I don’t understand, to the extent that all European countries have trusted the EMA so far with authorizing the AstraZeneca vaccine, I don’t understand why decisions have to be taken at the level of individual member states. Of course every country is responsible for dealing with this issue in the way it sees most suitable. But we have aligned ourselves fully with EMA recommendations. And until further notice, we will continue with our AstraZeneca vaccination program.
Julia Chatterley: Forgive me. And that was where I was meaning to talk about the confusion between the response from EU States, the various responses from the EU states, and obviously differing in that regard. Prime Minister, I wanted to talk to you about Greece because what I hear from friends -and I’ve spent many periods of time in Greece myself- is that people are tired of lockdown, they’re tired of handling this virus. And they look at the ICU capacity, the intensive care. and they’re wondering whether the strategy that you have right now is correct. Can you just respond to the strategy that you have right now to contain the virus and the concern perhaps that, going forward, the economy is going to be a challenge once again given the struggles that Greece has faced in the past.
Kyriakos Mitsotakis: Julia, we need to be honest, everyone is tired in terms of dealing with Covid. And what you see as Covid fatigue across Europe has common characteristics. We have essentially restricted economic activity for the past four to five weeks because we anticipated a third wave, which is currently happening in Greece. Had we not taken these measures, things would have been significantly worse. Of course our hospital system is under stress, but we’re still able to deal with the problem. And I’m absolutely certain that had we not taken the steps that we did take a month ago we would have faced a much more severe crisis now. And I do expect this wave to plateau within the next week or 10 days, and then start coming down. You know, there’s always a similar pattern.
At the same time, we need to be smart in terms of letting people become active again, without compromising our main strategy for containing the virus. So that’s exactly the balance that we need to strike. How do we let people have some degree of freedom without compromising our overall strategy? This is exactly what we’re looking at. And we expect to make announcements within the next 48 hours. At the same time, what I do need to point out is that we have significantly strengthened our national health care system. We’ve more than doubled our ICU beds over the past year, which was a significant achievement now for Greece. And if you look at the overall statistics, the way we’ve dealt with the pandemic since the very beginning, Greece still ranks as one of the best European countries in terms of deaths per million -which unfortunately is the most gruesome but the most indicative statistic in terms of how well a country has dealt with a pandemic.
So, we will deal with this third wave, I have no doubt about that. And as vaccinations will increase we will be able to start resuming normal economic activity. And we will be open for the summer for people to come to Greece safely and enjoy the unique Greek summer as they have done or as they expect to to be doing. Especially in these times, people will feel the real need to travel and we want to make sure that if they choose to travel they come to Greece and Greece is their number one destination.
Julia Chatterley: Oh my goodness, don’t you worry about that. I was Googling this morning while I was preparing for the interview and just dreaming, quite frankly. Very quickly, you are finding the balance, I think, in one specific place, which is the financial markets. I read this morning that you are set to launch a 30-year bond issue where, given past history, this would be the first time I believe since 2008. That is a marker of regaining financial market confidence. And I have about a minute left to talk to you Prime Minister, but I did want to mention this. Your comments on that, this is vitally important for the country too.
Kyriakos Mitsotakis: Well, thank you, Julia. Had we spoken a couple of years ago it would had been inconceivable for Greece to actually launch a 30-year bond. But we did it this year. It was more than 10 times oversubscribed. I think we’ll be raising around 2.5 billion euros with what we consider to be an attractive interest rate for a 30-year bond. And I think it is proof that Greece is back in the sense that we’ve left the financial crisis behind us for good.
The future of the country is extremely promising. I expect rapid growth once the pandemic is over. Α lot of investors are looking at Greece as a very interesting and very appealing investment opportunity. And I think this 30-year bond is just one additional step we take in the direction of leaving the legacy and our past of the previous decade behind us once and for good.
Julia Chatterley: Fingers crossed for a strong and safe summer season too. Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the Prime Minister of Greece.
