Government focus shifting to daily life

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis is reportedly determined to change the narrative with an emphasis on six specific areas of everyday life that have a direct impact on citizens, which he will present at the Thessaloniki International Fair (TIF) in September. 

“It’s fine for the ‘big’ projects to go ahead, but people want to see changes in their daily lives,” said a government source familiar with the planning for the next 18 months.

The strategy is seen as the antidote that the prime minister wants to apply against phenomena of introversion in ruling New Democracy, the endless discussions about the party’s character and even disillusionment, which can so easily take root in the center-right.

Mitsotakis wants the “daily life plan” to have tangible results by the end of 2025. The six areas of daily life are labor, economic growth, health, education, transport and infrastructure, and family.

The objective is not general and vague announcements, but concrete and tangible results.

For example, in the critical area of health, upgrade work has already started at 54 hospitals, of which 15 were contracted in the last half of 2023 and 39 in the first half of 2024, while a tender process has started for 24 hospitals. The tender for 16 hospitals is in the maturity stage. 

At the same time, recruitment of health workers is expected to reach 6,500 in 2024.

Regarding transport, the prime minister has said that 900 new buses will be in service by the end of 2025.

Indicative of the importance the government attaches to these sectors is that the prime minister has recently visited the ministries of Development, Rural Development, and Health while the schedule up to TIF includes plans to visit both the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of the Family.

Young citizens may not be a separate category but they cut across many ministry policies that the government will emphasize. 

The new auxiliary social security fund (TEKA) for example, which Mitsotakis referred to extensively during his visit to the Ministry of Labor on Thursday, is considered predominantly the “youth fund,” with the number of insured people already exceeding 280,000 with an average age of 23 years. 

Beyond that, both the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of the Family are, as a rule, ministries for the youth.