PM says Greece in better shape than in 2019 in May Day visit to Kifissia

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis visited the Kifissia Shoppingland area on Labor Day (Monday) to speak with citizens ahead of the upcoming election.

New Democracy’s government was the one to raise the minimum wage by 20% to 780 euros, to introduce the digital work card so all overtime is recorded, and the one that gave fathers the right to a leave for newborn children he said.

In an attack on SYRIZA-Progressive Alliance and its leader Alexis Tsipras, Mitsotakis said the main opposition party sees everything in terms of gray and black, if one takes into account its election ads campaign. “The gray and miserable Greece was their Greece, which we left for good in 2019. Our Greece is more optimistic, brighter,” the PM said, but acknowledged that “it is not a country without problems.” High prices are still here and eating away at citizens’ income, he noted, while the government supported households and businesses “with a series of tools to manage the imported high cost of living.”

There is no doubt, however, he said, that any objective citizen regardless of party affiliation would be able to see that the country is in better shape than it was in 2019. “Greece is on the right path, and this path, this progress, is being recognized by everyone – by foreign rating agencies, by foreign analysts – and it is a progress that must continue,” Mitsotakis said.

Mitsotakis also spoke of Sunday’s deadline by Greece’s Supreme Court for parties to table their objections to neo-Nazis forming parties or combinations to run for elections on May 21. “New Democracy tabled a memorandum on the case’s fundamentals. PASOK tabled a memorandum. SYRIZA was absent – absent, once again, from a democratic obligation,” he said, referring to the main opposition party’s decision not to participate in Parliament voting. (Syriza had announced on January 31, 2023 that it would not participate in any votes until elections were held, the exception being to ensure neo-Nazis did not enter Parliament again.)

Syriza’s decision not to table an objection with the Supreme Court was unacceptable, the PM added.

“We have things to do for what we did. We have bravely recognized our mistakes and committed to correcting them. But mostly we have a plan for Greece’s future,” Mitsotakis said.

Earlier in the day, the PM and his wife Mareva Grabowski-Mitsotakis paid a visit to the annual Flower Show of Kifissia, where he toured the kiosks and spoke with the public. [AMNA]