Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Thursday received the European Commissioner for Economy and Productivity, Valdis Dombrovskis, at the Maximos Mansion.
During the meeting, the European Commissioner highlighted what he described as Greece’s impressive performance in reforms, debt reduction and unemployment.
More specifically, he said that Greece has a strong track record in implementing reforms and addressing long-standing structural challenges, delivering impressive results when one considers both the evolution of debt and unemployment.
He added that Greece’s GDP has increased by approximately 13.4% compared to 2018, public debt has fallen by nearly 43% of GDP from its pre-COVID 2018 peak and unemployment has also declined significantly, from a peak of 28% in mid-2013 to 8.4% at the end of last year.
The Greek PM said that the economy’s overall performance and primary surpluses allowed space enough for targeted and temporary measurse for society, which was announced on Thursday, and he expressed the hope that the Middle East crisis would deescalate soon and there will be no need to discuss further measures or a different European approach.
Mitsotakis said that nevertheless, Greece remained absolutely committed to its economic plan and noted that it was the first time after the post-dictatorship era in Greece in which there has been a consistent reduction of the public debt.
The two also discussed the economic repercussions in the European economy of an extended crisis in the Middle East, the competitiveness capacity of the European Union, the new Multiannual Fiscal Framework of Europe, and the absorption of Recovery and Resilience Fund (RRF) resources.
In the latter context, the commissioner presented the prime minister with the folder on the approval of the disbursement of the 7th RRF tranche that Greece is entitled to, amounting to 1.18 billion euros.