Ladies and gentlemen, first of all, dear Albert, thank you for your extremely flattering words. My deepest thanks to the Atlantic Council for honouring me as a Global Citizen. But I would like to start by echoing the words of the President of Ghana and by saying that I really feel that this award belongs, most of all, to the people of Greece for their resilience and their perseverance and for what they have achieved over the past years.
Albert was right in describing the transformation of a country that was perceived some years ago as the ‘sick man’ of Europe, that suffered a profound economic depression, that went through social upheaval, that experimented with populism, but that now has convincingly turned the corner and is becoming, again, a stable democracy with a growing economy.
I thought in my brief remarks, I would share some thoughts with you about why I think the Greek story may be relevant to countries outside Greece, and why what we have achieved may resonate beyond our borders. I think this is not just for geopolitical reasons, because it is important that Greece now is a stable and predictable ally to the United States and an overall pillar of stability in a very turbulent part of this world. But I think the Greek story also teaches us some other lessons which I think are important for democracies across the world, as we struggle with the tides of populism and with the new divisions that tend to rip our societies apart.
I think what we have achieved in Greece is to demonstrate that one can actually govern from the political centre, that one can be pro-growth but also fiscally disciplined, that one can be, and let me resonate here the words of my good friend, Georgia Meloni, one can be a true patriot by being very much focused on strong defence and at the same time, protecting our borders. But one can also be socially liberal, focused on delivering high-quality public goods, but also reducing inequalities.
What I call this ‘new triangulation’ actually has the ability to bring together people from different ideological origins and to create a broader coalition that restores fundamental trust in politics.
My government has focused more on policy than politics. I think in general, in these eras where sometimes we place more emphasis on pure ideology than we should, we should deliver, that the keys to success of every government at the end of the day is effective delivery.
Not all issues are ideological. I think it is our responsibility as leaders to look for effective solutions where we can find them. And, eventually, we will be judged by how much would improve people’s lives. We will not be judged simply by how eloquent we are in terms of our public speaking. That is not the yardstick by which you measure the political success of a leader today.
Finally, I would like to point out that it is critical, again, in these era of intense polarisation, when we are fighting off populists who believe that they have a simple solution to complicated problems, to acknowledge the simple fact that these types of populists are actually driven by real grievances. The grievances of the people who actually vote for the populists are very much real, whether they’re related to income inequality, whether they’re related to issues of identity, whether they’re related to the consequences of globalisation with the winners and the losers it produces. These are real grievances, and we need to be very careful to address them, and certainly not appear condescending to the concerns of the average people.
Let me just conclude by quoting a European leader whom I deeply respect. The previous President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, said something which struck me before I even became Prime Minister. He said that “once we get elected, we all know what to do, we just don’t know how to get reelected if we do what we have to do”. Well, if there’s one lesson from the Greek story, it is that my dear friend was wrong. We got reelected by doing exactly what was right, and the Greek people rewarded us for us.
So thank you again very much to the Atlantic Council for this award, which again belongs to the people of Greece. Thank you very much.
