Debates on Greek parliamentary elections and disagreements between parties may have dominated the news lately, but “the government is duty-bound to continue to produce results for the benefit of citizens until the very last day,” Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said on Sunday, in a weekly social media update.
Reviewing the week’s work on Palm Sunday, marking the start of Orthodox Easter week, Mitsotakis spoke of advances in the ‘Greece 2.0′ National Plan related to education, the public sector, and investments in production leading to higher exports.
In education, he spoke of a school visit in Agii Anargyri, where an interactive teaching board was installed among a total of 36,000 such teachers’ aids to be introduced in first- and second-level education schools in Greece, and of the founding of more standard and experimental schools. A total of 17 such schools will be set up, with all but one in regions beyond Attica, he said.
The past week saw the implementation of the process to review ad reward the work of civil servants. In the initial phase, the process will focus on public administrators who helped implement the annual action plans at the ministries, and on those who worked to fulfil the projects set out in the ‘Greece 2.0’ plan, Mitsotakis said. Apropos of the public sector, he also underlined the progress in e-services, especially in the transfer of real estate assets.
On the development project in the Votanikos neighborhood of Athens, west of Omonia square, Mitsotakis spoke of the ‘Odyssey’ of the new 40,000-seat stadium for FC Panathinaikos, work on which finally began this past week after 20 years of delays. “An entire area that lay dying up to now will develop, acquire public utility networks, and public green spaces,” the premier said, calling it “a large urban intervention, and a double one, because it will include upgrades in Alexandras Avenue.” The project is budgeted at 123 million euros and will be funded by the Recovery and Resilience Fund and the Public Investments Program.
Speaking of his recent tour of Epirus and the city of Ioannina (Yannena), Mitsotakis said he saw “an impressive transformation” due to the region’s 2030 plan, which involves over 380 projects worth 2.7 billion euros. The PM made particular mention of the dairy company Dodoni, “a former bankrupted state industry that blossomed and grew in the last 10 years, doubling its annual turnover to 150 million euros, 50% of which is based on exports.” The company is the largest employer in Epirus, employing 500 people, and supports more than 1,500 small producers of the region. “Dodoni is the model of a health and innovative entrepreneurship that we want to have, and that we will support as a state, removing bureaucratic obstacles and creating a stable investment-friendly environment,” he underlined.
The sector, he noted, has grown considerably in the last four years in volume of milk and feta produced (11%), in producer prices (33%-56%). He highlighted feta – a protected designation of origin (PDO) and popular Greek product – whose exports rose to 605 million euros in 2022, the PM noted, compared to 388 million euros in 2019.
Among other issues, Mitsotakis also referred to the strong indications for a high tourism season ahead, the environmental protection of popular tourism sites, the search for solutions in seasonal workers, an 8% rise in benefits for 200,000 disabled, a program to help the homeless find work and become integrated (which he said was competing for a European prize in innovation in politics), and measures to protect the historic film theaters of Ideal and Astor, an issue that he said “relates to the image and identity of the Greek capital”.
SOURCE; ANA-MPA
