Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis met today with the Commissioner for the Internal Market, Thierry Breton. At the start of the meeting Kyriakos Mitsotakis made the following remarks:
Kyriakos Mitsotakis: It is a real pleasure to welcome you. And I know you are a true friend of Greece, Margaritis occasionally tells me that we have two Greek Commissioners in the College.
This is an opportunity, first of all, to personally congratulate you on the excellent work you have done on the vaccine front. I’ve always been extremely supportive of the European effort, even in times when there was public skepticism, and I made the point that the decision of the European Union to purchase vaccines as a Union and distribute them to all member states, per capita, without making any distinction between rich and poor countries, large and small countries, was a true demonstration of European solidarity. And then we delivered on the project. I think we also added some value in terms of the digital certificate, which was an idea that we first launched, and I know you supported. But you’ve done a fantastic job in terms of procurement, organizing what was an extremely complex process.
And now we have reached the point where we have vaccines for every single European. And now the challenge is to convince people to get vaccinated. And we have also reached that threshold. And I’m happy to report that with a comprehensive campaign that we have put together, and – I think – with the proper balance between incentives and disincentives, we see vaccinations significantly pick up over the past weeks and we need to continue along that path.
But we will also have an opportunity to discuss other fascinating aspects of your portfolio, regarding strategic autonomy, space, in which Greece did not really play a very active role, but we want to be more present under this government because – let me just conclude with this remark – we’ve been through a very difficult period, 10 years of great challenges, but I think we’ve turned the corner for good. This is a country that is going to grow significantly and we want to be at the forefront not just of growth, but of innovation, and I think we have the human capital and the desire to do so again.
