Targeting 200,000 new jobs

The government intends to create some 200,000 jobs across the economy during its four-year mandate, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said on Friday.

The Greek premier took part in a dialogue at a gathering co-hosted by New Democracy and the European People’s Party under the theme “The Road to Recovery” in Athens.

“We aim to create 200,000 new job positions. That’s why we named the plan Greece 2.0,” stated Mitsotakis, highlighting that it was one of the first plans to be approved in the European Union. However, he also emphasized that it required significant effort beforehand “to actually develop a highly detailed plan that combined investments and reforms and which was subsequently submitted to the European Commission.”

Mitsotakis referred to the approach followed by the European People’s Party during the pandemic, when it created NextGenerationEU, whose main tool is the Recovery and Resilience Facility.

At that time, emphasized Mitsotakis, “many believed that what we were proposing was unthinkable.” He emphasized that it demonstrates Europe’s ability to find highly innovative solutions under pressure and referred to the characteristic example of the decision that countries could borrow at the supranational level, at the level of the European Union. Subsequently, states would direct these resources, through a combination of grants and loans, to member-states based on their economic situation.

The goal was for weaker countries to receive greater support, but also based on a very detailed plan that member-states had to submit, which had to align with the European Union’s overall priorities regarding green and digital transformation, social cohesion, and competitiveness, he added. It took a great effort, Mitsotakis stressed, to have a very detailed plan that combined investments and reforms and was subsequently submitted to the European Commission.

Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic and Manfred Weber, president of the EPP and leader of the EPP Parliamentary Group in the European Parliament, also delivered speeches at the event. EPP Parliamentary Group Vice President Siegfried Muresan, serving as coordinator, led the discussion.