Mitsotakis vows to ‘fix sins of past’ during new term

Re-elected Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has pledged his conservative government would “fix the sins of the past” and over the next four years cut taxes, boost wages and pensions, and repay bailout debts earlier than expected.

Mitsotakis, 55, won 158 seats in the 300-seat parliament in a June 25 national election, securing a clear majority to push ahead with his plan.

The leader of the center-right New Democracy party said in his first parliamentary address since the election that his party received a mandate to move fast with reforms.

Mitsotakis pledged to help the country achieve robust growth, regain this year an investment grade credit rating after 13 years and repay earlier than expected bilateral loans from its first bailout agreement with the eurozone.

He promised to give pensioners a one-off annual bonus again this year, extend measures to shield households from a cost-of-living crisis and increase a tax-exemption threshold by 1,000 euros for households with children from next year.

The premier also said the monthly minimum wage would be raised to 950 euros from 780 euros currently, while social security contributions would be cut by one percentage point. A business tax on the self-employed would be gradually reduced.

“Better days lie ahead,” he told parliament, promising to crack down on tax evasion and to reform the country’s ailing health sector.

The cost of New Democracy’s pre-election program is estimated at 9 billion euros.

Mitsotakis says Greece, still the eurozone’s most indebted nation, can achieve primary surpluses of around 2% annually, despite the relief measures.

“At the beginning of my new term I’m not promising miracles, just hard work,” he told lawmakers.

Mitsotakis was kicking off a three-day parliamentary process which will conclude with a confidence vote on June 8.

The election was a heavy defeat for Alexis Tsipras’ SYRIZA, the leftist party which ruled Greece in 2015-2019, at the peak of its debt crisis. Tsipras lost 39 seats and resigned last week.

Fringe parties of the political left and right – including an anti-immigrant party calling themselves the Spartiates (Spartans) – got a foothold in parliament.

Analysts have said it was unlikely that far-right parties, which received over 12% of the vote, could define government policy. But they are expected to stir public debate on LGBTQ+ issues, migration and relations with Greece’s historic rival Turkey. [Reuters]