Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis met at Maximos Mansion with the European Commissioner for Economy and Productivity, Implementation and Simplification Valdis Dombrovskis.
During the meeting, the economic consequences of a prolonged crisis in the Middle East on the European economy, the competitiveness of the European Union, the new Multiannual Financial Framework, as well as the absorption of funds from the Recovery and Resilience Facility were discussed.
In this context, Commissioner Dombrovskis handed the Prime Minister the dossier approving the disbursement of the 7th tranche from the RRF funds to which Greece is entitled, amounting to 1.18 billion euros.
At the beginning of the meeting, the Prime Minister and the Commissioner had the following dialogue:
Kyriakos Mitsotakis: I was telling the Prime Minister of Latvia that we’re very happy because you brought us some rain, but I think the weather is going to get better by tomorrow, so you’ll have a chance to experience Delphi in its full spring glory.
It’s a pleasure to welcome you, and I’m happy that we’ll hopefully have announcements regarding the 7th RRF grant. I think this is testimony to the great work we’ve done with your support in making the NextGenerationEU a great success for the Greek economy. And I think once the programme will be completed – and it will be completed on time as far as all the commitments that we have assumed are concerned- and once we look at the overall impact that it has, I think it will be registered as a great European success.
And of course, we’re also quite happy about the overall performance of the economy. We keep surprising ourselves pleasantly in terms of the primary surpluses. This gives us also some fiscal space for targeted and temporary measures. We announced a package yesterday that is very much in that logic. And we do hope that the crisis in the Middle East will be defused relatively soon and we won’t need to have other discussions regarding more measures or a different European approach.
But overall, Greece remains fully committed to its economic programme. I think this needs to be pointed out, that it’s the first time in the country’s sort of post-dictatorship history that we have a consistent reduction in our debt overload. It has never happened before. I think it’s a legacy not just for this but for the next generation.
And we’re doing it while producing primary surpluses, healthy growth rates, creating jobs, and outperforming most of Europe.
So I think this is a testimony to the success of the economic policy and I want to assure you that there will be no deviations from this policy of fiscal discipline, because it’s exactly this policy that lays the foundation upon which our entire economic approach is based.
So again, good to have you in Athens and welcome.
Valdis Dombrovskis: Honourable Prime Minister, dear Kyriakos, Mr. Minister, colleagues, well, it’s a pleasure to be back and thank you for sharing this outlook, because indeed today Greece stands among the best-performing European economies. And it’s helped also to a large degree with the EU funds, which stay there to support crucial investments and reforms to make them happen.
So, I’m pleased today to confirm the 7th payment under the Recovery and Resilience Facility of €1.18 billion. As I understand, we’ll have a dedicated ceremony to this. This reflects the positive progress of Greece with its ambitious Recovery and Resilience Plan, and with almost €36 billion, it’s the largest plan in the EU in terms of the percentage of GDP.
And the clock is ticking, so all remaining milestones and targets must be implemented by the end of August 2026. Last payment requests have to be submitted by the end of September. So now we really need to focus on delivery and, so to say, fully using the opportunities which Recovery and Resilience Facility provides.
So all in all, as I was mentioning, Greece has a strong track record in implementing reforms and tackling longstanding structural challenges which Greece is facing with impressive results if you look both in terms of debt and unemployment developments.
So Greece GDP has grown by some 13.4% compared to 2018. Debt has declined by almost 43% of GDP since its from pre-COVID peak in 2018. Unemployment also has fallen dramatically from its peak of 28% at mid-2013 to 8.4% at the end of last year. So it’s a remarkable turnaround by all accounts.
Of course, we see that current economic outlook is surrounded by uncertainty, mainly linked with conflict in the Middle East and resulted surge of the energy prices. Well, exact impact on the European and Greek economy will depend how long the conflict will last, how large the oil and gas price shock is going to be.
But what we see is that the impact is already there. We are facing the stagflationary shock to the economy with economic slowdown while simultaneously higher inflation and external economic environment is not very conducive to growth, so it means that we need to focus on internal drivers of growth, on our competitiveness agenda, and there it’s a shared responsibility both at the EU and member states level.
So I look forward for this continued work and for discussions today on how we can work to enhance both EU and Greek economic competitiveness. Thank you.
