PM Mitsotakis: Greece to repay additional 5 billion euros early in 2025

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, speaking with journalist Francine Lacqua at Bloomberg’s event titled “The New Era of Greek Banking,” highlighted that Greece will make an early repayment of an additional 5 billion euros borrowed under the first bailout agreement in 2025.

“ When it comes to early repayments, I think they reflect the strong financial position of the Greek economy. We always want to surprise markets on the upside. I think you’d expect an additional 5 billion of repayments in 2025 from the GLF loans that would mature between 2033 and 2042,” Mitsotakis said and added: “ Again, it’s an indication of the confidence that we have in our public finances, the excellent job that’s been done by our public debt management office and the overall strength of the fiscal position of Greece, which is not something that many people would have expected four or five years ago”.

Mitsotakis also said that Greece “ still remember the trauma of the financial crisis. Frankly, we still have to deal with legacy issues which we have not completely overcome, especially when you look at wages, GDP per capita. Greece suffered tremendously during the decade of the financial crisis, which was unnecessarily long for reasons which we’ve had a chance to discuss many times. But when we came into power, we realised from the very beginning that fiscal discipline is a non negotiable, not just a priority, it’s a foundation upon which all our other policies are being based. We’ve been ruthlessly focused on delivering fiscal discipline and surprising the markets on the upside”.

The full discussion between Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Francine Lacqua follows (transcript posted on the page of the prime minister’s office):

Francine Lacqua: Prime Minister, there’s a lot that we need to talk about. We’ll get on to trade and tariffs and the worry that the world is fragmenting. We’ll talk a little bit about the fact that you spoke with Donald Trump last week. But actually, let’s start on Greece and some of the repayments. You told us in June that there’d be eight billion that’d be repaid, actually a little bit earlier than expected. What comes next?

Kyriakos Mitsotakis: Well, first of all, thank you so much for having me. Always a pleasure to discuss with you. Thank you, Constantine, for your introductory remarks and your positive assessment regarding the potential of the Greek economy. I’m sure we’ll be able to discuss this in a little bit more detail.
When it comes to early repayments, I think they reflect the strong financial position of the Greek economy. We always want to surprise markets on the upside. I think you’d expect an additional 5 billion of repayments in 2025 from the GLF loans that would mature between 2033 and 2042.
Again, it’s an indication of the confidence that we have in our public finances, the excellent job that’s been done by our public debt management office and the overall strength of the fiscal position of Greece, which is not something that many people would have expected four or five years ago.

Francine Lacqua: Prime Minister, that’s why I really wanted to start there. It’s incredible. This seems to be your North Star. Keep the markets on side, deliver on what you’ve promised, and keep going.

Kyriakos Mitsotakis: Look, we still remember the trauma of the financial crisis. Frankly, we still have to deal with legacy issues which we have not completely overcome, especially when you look at wages, GDP per capita. Greece suffered tremendously during the decade of the financial crisis, which was unnecessarily long for reasons which we’ve had a chance to discuss many times.
But when we came into power, we realised from the very beginning that fiscal discipline is a non negotiable, not just a priority, it’s a foundation upon which all our other policies are being based. We’ve been ruthlessly focused on delivering fiscal discipline and surprising the markets on the upside.
If you look at the state of our budget, we’ve been able to bring in more revenues by decreasing taxes. Why has this happened? Because the economy has grown and because we’ve been successful in going after tax evasion. Not many European countries can actually claim to be able to implement such a policy. We have been able to maintain these high growth rates while at the same time bringing down our debt at a record pace.
I don’t think we have any reason to mess with success. That is why when we submitted our new four-year fiscal plan to the European Union, we were very, very careful, even taking into consideration that I think that the assumptions of the European Union are rather pessimistic when it comes to our growth rate. We will do better than what some people expect, but we know we have expenditure benchmarks which we need to meet. We know that whatever benefit we can create from reducing tax evasion, we cannot necessarily spend the money away, but we can reduce tax rates if we prove that we systematically address issues of tax evasion.
I think all in all, this has been a successful formula. The markets clearly are comfortable with what we’re doing. Of course, there’s collateral benefit in terms of what’s happening with the banking sector, but also the ability of large corporates to borrow at lower rates, also benefiting from the cheap RRF loans.
Frankly, we need this environment in order to stimulate investment because the foundation is not enough to build a house. What we need to do once we’ve created a solid fiscal base is to attract more investment in numerous sectors of the economy. This is something which is happening and we can do better even when it comes to attracting investment.

Francine Lacqua: I was going to ask you about foreign direct investment and how you see that going in the next couple of quarters. Are there questions that actually some of the big investors are asking of you, given also the uncertain geopolitical environment?

Kyriakos Mitsotakis: Well, again, I think we’ve sorted out the fundamentals. What makes investors very comfortable is that they don’t see a country risk. If anything, Greece goes against the trend.
When it comes to the overall political situation of the country, we have a comfortable, stable majority and a commitment, a firm commitment by me that we will see out our term and we will hold our elections in the spring, early summer of 2027.
Investors know that we have a little bit more than two and a half years to see out our mandate. They know what to expect. They know that we are a single-party government, so we don’t need to be engaged in complicated coalition negotiations. Just look at what’s happening in other important countries in Europe to understand what an asset this political stability actually actually is. It’s certainly not a given. It’s the exception to the rule today in Europe. That is why that, I think, is a second important foundation upon which our policies are based.
Now, when you look at geopolitics, what could be a challenge could also be an opportunity. For example, we look at Ukraine and the horrible situation in Ukraine. But when it comes, for example, to energy flows, a completely new energy route has opened for liquefied natural gas to enter the European system through Greece. This is gas that actually makes it up to Ukraine.
When you look at, for example, the big geopolitical alignments, the rise of India, you realise, just by looking at the map that when we talk about this new corridor, the IMEC corridor, India – Middle East – Europe, the natural entry point into continental Europe is Greece. That also explains a significant investment we see in Greece in the logistics infrastructure, which frankly is pleasantly surprising to all of us.
I look at the short-term challenges, but also the long-term opportunities. In that sense, Greece as a stable country, member of NATO, member of the Eurozone, in this geography, offers both challenges but also great opportunities.

Francine Lacqua: Prime Minister, talk to me about the banks. We have the CEOs of the four largest banks. We will have a panel a little bit later on. Is there anything more that you can do? First of all, the health of the banking sector, but also, are there any initiatives to help, for example, with deferred tax credits or things like that?

Kyriakos Mitsotakis: Let me think how nice do I want to be. First of all..

Francine Lacqua: You can be as mean as you want.

Kyriakos Mitsotakis: Let’s look at the big picture. I think overall, when we came into power in 2019, there was a big discussion regarding the stability of the Greek banking sector. Right now, the banks are doing very well. They’ve cleaned up their balance sheet. We helped, of course, through the tools that we gave the banks.
We have a well-functioning, normal European banking system, which is no longer a problem, but it needs to be transformed also now into an opportunity for the Greek economy. Of course, we have legacies coming from the past, but the banking profitability is also a way to address these issues.
But I do think that more can be done. For example, when I look at mortgages and you look at the number of mortgages that are being issued by the banks, the numbers are still low. I think when we look at our housing policy, for example, I understand we look at the safer customers, but I think the banks are also in a position now to take a little bit more risk to finance the mortgage market, not just to wait for the schemes that the government is presenting -because we have a heavily subsidised scheme to help young families obtain houses-, but also outside this scheme, what can they do more on that front?
I’m all in favour of banking competition. Competition in general is good. It drives down costs and it makes banking more affordable. I’m very happy that our new free direct payment system called IRIS has been a great success, especially by young people. We need to see how we can bolster it and strengthen it.
Banks currently have on their balance sheets lots of real estate. They need to get rid of that at a fast pace. That will help the market. We have a tight real estate market, so the more real estate that comes onto the market, the better it will be.
Of course, financing the real economy beyond the very successful large, medium-sized enterprises, offering more credit to smaller companies, take maybe a different risk profile when it comes to financing innovation.
I think these are the challenges of the next day. But it’s good that we’ve left behind us the challenges of a banking system where most of the time of the CEOs was basically taken up by cleaning up their portfolios of nonperforming loans. That has been addressed.

Francine Lacqua: Prime Minister, you seem to be asking banks to, I guess, take a more active role maybe at this juncture in time in the economy. Are you willing to help them out in terms of deferred tax credits? Is there anything that you can give them to make sure that actually they’re on a stable footing?

Kyriakos Mitsotakis: No. I think we’ve done enough already. The good thing is that we have really helped the banks in terms of addressing the fundamental problem of non-performing loans. Again, I’m all in favour, and this is what we want, a predictable landscape. I’ve said from the very beginning, they’re not going to be surprises when it comes to the government. But banks are partners. In the growth story of the Greek economy, you cannot imagine a banking sector that does well in an economy that is not thriving. We’ve had discussions with some of the CEOs looking at our agricultural sector, for example, and what does innovation and productivity investment mean for a country that is exporting € 8 billion of goods because we happen to be living in a blessed land that produces excellent high-quality agricultural products. So all these are, I think, interesting topics for discussion. And of course, we’ve used the banks as partners in this effort.

Francine Lacqua: Prime Minister, would you welcome a new entrant? Let’s say a foreign bank coming into Greece? Is it time for something to be shaken up?

Kyriakos Mitsotakis: Well, it’s not my job to determine what will happen in terms of market forces. There have been investments by big foreign banks into Greek banks. Again, I don’t see a need for further consolidation of the Greek banking sector, if you ask me personally. But again, it’s the market and the decision-makers themselves that will define that.
On the other hand, I could see certainly room for more critical size when it comes to European financial institutions, because we speak a lot about about Greece, but one of the big challenges we face at the European level when we talk with our colleagues is to have institutions of critical size and also to make capital markets union a reality, because we’ve been talking about it for many, many years now.
If you look at the Draghi report, it’s one of the first issues that it highlights in terms of the inability of young, growing European companies to access the capital that they could access in the US. Capital Markets Union is a necessity. We support it 100%. There is a model in terms of which we regulate our banks, our systemic banks, regulated centrally by the ECB. The smaller banks are regulated locally. We could have a similar system when it comes to our capital markets. But there is a clear understanding that this is a necessity.

Francine Lacqua: But do you think this means that actually Greek banks should look overseas more and do more business in Europe, or do they need to wait for a working capital markets union, which frankly, at the moment, is still quite…

Kyriakos Mitsotakis: I think we probably have the right people to ask, but I’m sure the banks are also they’re also looking at markets, for example, such as India, which India for us is probably the greatest opportunity in terms of building a strong geopolitical and economic relationship, be it bringing in more tourists, Greek companies expanding into the Indian market, bringing in Indian investment into Greece. One of the tragedies of the crisis was that the banks were essentially forced to sell off their holdings in the Balkans. They were forced to do it. They didn’t want to do it, but they were forced to do it. We had a strong regional presence and most of that presence, some exceptions, no longer exist. But if we aspire to play a role as a leader in the region, it’s only natural for the banks to also look beyond the borders of Greece, and we would certainly welcome that.

Francine Lacqua: The government has offloaded most of, of course, the stakes in the big banks in the last 12 months. Why is that? So you can focus on other privatisations or it was just time?

Kyriakos Mitsotakis: Because we have no job in having a stake in banks. A stake we’re maintaining at the National Bank of Greece, but again, to be examined in the future. But I think overall, it was a successful policy. It’s also good that the investors very much welcomed these decisions and that now we have a portfolio of very serious investors investing in the Greek banks. That can only be helpful. We don’t have a particular value to add in a bank. It’s not our job to be shareholders in banks.

Francine Lacqua: What comes next in terms of privatisation? There’s a lot that could happen. What’s your priority?

Kyriakos Mitsotakis: A lot has already happened, and let’s, for a moment, just take stock of everything that we have achieved over the past year. Was it 11 privatisations that we have done in total? So, I would argue that probably this cycle is more or less coming to an end. There’s not that much right now to privatise.
My focus would be when it comes to the state assets, to increase the efficiency of those companies that will remain within the Greek sovereign fund because as you know, we’re merging all the entities that were holding Greek assets to see how much value we can unlock for those companies that will remain under state control.
We’ve actually proven that this is something that can be done, that we can maintain… Also, there are companies in which we can maintain a strong stake. Look at the Public Power Corporation, which can be run extremely professionally, which can bring in foreign investors, and from laggards to turn into leaders. The PPC was another company which was on the verge of bankruptcy when we came into power in 2019, and now it’s doing very well. It’s also one of those companies that is also helping with our overall strategy when it comes to the green transition.

Francine Lacqua: Prime Minister, you were one of the few heads of state in Europe that was in charge last time Donald Trump was President of the US. You had a call with him last week when he was elected President. How did it go?

Kyriakos Mitsotakis: Oh, I’m surprised you didn’t ask me this first.

Francine Lacqua: It would have overshadowed all of our great banking conversation.

Kyriakos Mitsotakis: Yes, I spoke to President-elect Trump last week. We had a very friendly discussion. He recognised the great progress that the Greek economy has achieved. After all, what we have done, which is reducing taxes and focusing on a business friendly environment, I think, rings some bells with him. Of course, the US can afford to run a much bigger deficit than we can, but we didn’t discuss about that at all.
But we also spoke about the strategic partnership between Greece and the US. Of course, when we look at the US, all EU member states have bilateral relations, but we also have a relationship as a European Union with the US. The Greek bilateral relationship with the United States is profoundly strong. The foundations were even built during the last months of the Trump administration. We have a Defence Cooperation Agreement with the US, which we signed for five years. So It will extend and will be prolonged, but it also extends into the term of the new President-elect. We’ve made this relationship not just about defence and security. We’ve also made it a strong economic relationship, if you look at also the amount of direct investment we have by US capital into Greece.
All in all, very pleasant and positive discussions. Again, I met President Trump. I was at the White House. I met him at NATO gatherings, and I’m looking forward to working with him again.

Francine Lacqua: Do you worry about tariffs and fragmentation?

Kyriakos Mitsotakis: I do worry about tariffs because I’m a proponent of free trade, and I believe that tariffs eventually don’t create a net positive impact. My position has not changed. But when it comes to tariffs , we need to be very clear: The European Union is negotiating as a whole, so there’s no room to have bilateral agreements. It’s a core competency of the Commission.
But speaking about the art of the deal, I think a deal can be made when it comes to the US-European trade relations. I can’t go into more details because I don’t know how the US is going to approach this topic. But I do think that a trade war between the US and Europe would clearly not benefit, neither the US nor Europe. I do think, regardless of what will happen with China, that the US-European trade relationship needs to be preserved and needs to be addressed as a stand-alone trade negotiation.

Francine Lacqua: Prime Minister, what’s changed from the first time around he was in charge? Again, we have a lot of nominations, it seems that the President-elect is going for loyalists. Does that change the relationship with Europe? It also seems that Europe could be much more organised than the first time around, where frankly, a lot of the leaders in charge were surprised by the tariffs. So is the power dynamic going to be different this time?

Kyriakos Mitsotakis: Well, first of all, let me point out that this discussion around the European strategic autonomy, the need to boost our competitiveness, did not start with the election of Donald Trump. The Draghi report was prepared before the Trump election. Even if Donald Trump had not won, the fundamental assumptions and recommendations of the Draghi report would still hold. Maybe there’s a renewed sense of urgency to wake up from our geopolitical phase of our geopolitical naiveté. But this is something which is recognised at the European Council.
When you look at, for example, issues of competitiveness, some of the issues which are touched upon in the Draghi report are critical for Europe, regardless of what happens in the US. Energy. We’ve spoken a lot about energy. I was the first to make my point very, very vocal. We don’t have a European energy market now. We have something which pretends to be a European energy market with 26 various strategies.
If you look at the discrepancies in prices, especially when it comes to Southeastern Europe, it’s unacceptable, completely unacceptable in a European so-called energy market that the countries Southeastern Europe, which are the less prosperous countries, are penalised because you have some strange algorithm that does not send enough energy to Eastern Europe or from Eastern Europe to Central Europe to protect the more prosperous parts of Europe. This is simply not acceptable
We’re not talking about a one-day distortion, which we could explain. This is a pattern. We will make our case very, very clear to the European Commission. I think the new President of the Commission also agrees that bringing down energy prices, but for all, not just for some. Greece is a protagonist when it comes to the energy transition. But we have not yet benefited in terms of prices from the investment that we have made.
This is not the only case for the European single market is not working. I find it difficult to explain why a product of, for example, a multinational company, a detergent or a shampoo, can cost much more in Greece than it costs in a mainstream market in Europe. Is it just transportation? No. It’s technical regulations, what we call “ Territorial Supply Constraints”, which allow multinationals to price their products differently in the bigger markets. That’s not a single market. That’s unfair to the smaller countries.
Some of these issues need to be addressed because at the end of the day, promoting the single market and strengthening our competitiveness across the board is going to be critical to deal with the United States, which will be more, I wouldn’t say more isolationist, but the America First policy is clearly going to dominate.
Now, when it comes to the nominations, I’m not going to comment at all about those. The only thing I can say is that we will work with the people who will be confirmed by the US Senate when it comes to foreign policy. For example, I happen to know Senator Marco Rubio. He was a co-sponsor of an important piece of legislation regarding the Eastern Mediterranean region, and he knows the region well. I think it’s good that he understands the complexity of our region.

Francine Lacqua: But, Prime Minister, going back to the Draghi report, it was very comprehensive. Some say it was alarmist, but frankly, it feels like it’s just fallen on deaf ears. It was like speaking to a desert. Is Europe finally going to actually do something about competitiveness?

Kyriakos Mitsotakis: We are at the beginning of the new European cycle with a new Commission, which I do hope will be put in place by December 1st. We still have some final confirmation votes to take place at the European Parliament, but I don’t anticipate any complications. And with the President of the Commission that has a very clear mandate to deliver on issues related to competitiveness. And she also believes in this. I’m very much aligned with the President of the Commission on these issues.
And I think it will be the litmus test of the new Commission, whether we are able to address these issues and whether we can make the Green Deal work for all, because the Green Deal is not just a very, very fast green transition to meet some nominal targets, it also needs to work for our business. If we drive European industry into oblivion while making the Green Deal work, when we only account for 6% of global emissions, I don’t think we will have achieved something very significant. I’m a believer in the green transition. But if this requires recalibrating the pace and, of course, looking at the overall regulatory burden, I’m all for it.
I think there’s a general understanding within the European Council, but also within the Commission, that this is a direction in which we need to go. I’m a big believer in the green transition, but I’m also a big believer that we cannot only look at long-term mitigation, how we will bring down our emissions in 2035 or 2040, that we need to do. But what about adaptation in 2024 and 2025? How much money are we actually spending to protect our countries, our communities, from what we know is already happening today. Look at what happened in Spain. We had similar catastrophic floods, thank God, without significant loss of life in Greece last year, we have wildfires, we have water shortages. These are critical issues.
For example, let me give you an example of the complexity of European regulation. Should it be part of the Green Deal to invest in water conservation today? Maybe technically, some European bureaucrat may tell you, “ No, this really doesn’t bring down the emissions”. But it’s critical. It’s critical not just for adaptation, it’s critical for the competitiveness of our agricultural sector. It’s an environmental investment. This is probably the number one challenge that in Greece we will be facing for the next 10 years.

Francine Lacqua: But is it therefore critical to convince Donald Trump to stay in the Paris Climate Accord? And again, how do you deal with President-elect Donald Trump? You know him. What’s the right way to try and reach a deal, especially if he wants to go country by country instead of looking at the European Union as a whole.

Kyriakos Mitsotakis: As I told you, I think when it comes to trade, it’s impossible to do. The European treaties don’t allow bilateral deals.
Now, when I look at what’s happening in the green transition space in the US, there are the official positions of the government, but the states also are playing a critical role, and many of the states are clearly pushing the green transition, maybe faster than the federal government. Of course, there’s a huge allocation of capital in clean tech. I wish there was more capital invested in clean tech in Europe, but technological solutions will, I’m convinced about that, will help us address numerous aspects of the climate crisis.
That is why I believe that also in Europe, we need to be ruthlessly technologically agnostic when it comes to the emerging technologies, because simply we don’t know what will end up working and what doesn’t. It shouldn’t be our job to say, ‘This is the only technology that works’. The market is going to a certain extent, and science will determine which technology works.
For example, look at shipping. Does anyone have a solution right now? Does anybody know what green shipping may mean in 5, 10, 15 years? We don’t know. There are various technologies competing. If we were to impose a regulatory burden or point to a specific technological direction, I think we would be making a mistake.
Probably the most obvious example is nuclear technology. We don’t have nuclear in Greece, and we’re interested in understanding what’s happening in the small modular reactor space, but we don’t have any regulatory history or understanding of how this technology works. We don’t have any skin in the game. But nuclear is a zero-emission technology. There’s no doubt about that. I do believe that it will be part of the overall mix. Excluding technology simply because there are other aspects which we don’t like doesn’t seem to me to be the right way to go.

Francine Lacqua: But, Prime Minister, do you feel unsettled? There’s a lot going on. It could be these technologies, competitiveness in Europe. There’s also a power vacuum with the German elections. There’s AI, there’s this trade concerns. Is it unsettling to lead a country in these uncertain times?
Kyriakos Mitsotakis: It’s certainly very complex. And that, I think, is what sometimes… It’s difficult for people to explain that leading, governing these days is not easy. That is why I think you also see a significant backlash against incumbents. In 2023, we essentially went against the trend. We managed to win a re-election and we increased our share of the vote. It was not easy. Why did we succeed? Because I think we delivered on our basic promises.
So, I think, in this complex world, people basically want to feel, to a certain extent, safe and protected. There are lots of things happening that people don’t understand, and we don’t expect them to understand. So, finding a way to make sense out of this sometimes chaotic environment, and explain to people that, “ look, things may be happening. They’re all difficult to explain. But as a country, we have a course. This is where we are, this is where we want to get, this is what you can expect from us”.
For example, my number one commitment is to increase wages in the second term and to continue to bring down taxes and to also shift our support because we’ve really, really helped a lot of people with lower income, focusing on the minimum wage. I want to shift our support to also make sure that the middle class feels the benefits of this growth.
But for example, when we look at AI, this is what you can expect. This is what we can do to help you with the technology. This is what we can do to regulate the technology where we feel that there are issues which require regulation. So part of our job is also to explain in simple terms, what has really happened, and to debunk various conspiracy theories. That is a big problem that democracies are facing. Conspiracy theories, they always existed, but that are now much easier to spread.
It is our job with simple words to explain to people, to respect that people, first of all, don’t know all the facts. One of the big things, what I call the arrogance of the Davos elite, is that we expect everybody to know what we happen to know. No, people go about their daily lives. They have issues, and they can easily believe conspiracy theories. It doesn’t make them bad people or deplorables or whatever. No, that’s the wrong way to look at how a democracy is functioning today.
We need a backlash against this populist surge and to basically explain in simple words what it is we’re doing and what is in it for the people. People are not concerned if our headline GDP growth rate is three times the EU average. Is this translated into better disposable income, higher wages, better public services, better hospitals, better schools, better public transportation? That’s what they care about.

Francine Lacqua: Prime Minister, you recently also expelled, actually, from your party, a former Prime Minister, Antοnis Samaras, a hardline nationalist. Do you worry? What does that mean, actually, for, I guess, opposition, for nationalism potentially coming back? Is this a concern of yours?

Kyriakos Mitsotakis: Look, what is done is done. And I think the decision was very, very clearly explained. My job is to look forward and into the future.
Again, I want to stress that we have a comfortable parliamentary majority and that in these turbulent times, the last thing we need is to experiment with political stability. So treat this as a one-off, a sad one-off incident, but we leave it behind us now. I think the important thing is to make sure we deliver upon our commitments.

Francine Lacqua: You don’t think… I mean, does the election of Donald Trump change the conversations around nationalism in Europe? Is there a worry amongst the people in charge that the conversation shifts?

Kyriakos Mitsotakis: Well, be wary of… The one thing I can say is be wary of imitations. The US is a very peculiar political system, and Donald Trump is quite a unique political personality. Sometimes, I think you’ll find many wannabes, many imitators also in the European hard right or far right. Even when you look in Greece, yes, we’ve had parties, smaller parties, to the right of New Democracy, that in the last elections got a significant share of the vote. But they were fragmented. In my mind, they don’t propose a credible alternative in terms of the direction of the country.
I’ve always been a big proponent of what I call responsible patriotism. When you look at our foreign policy agenda, we strengthened our armed forces. It’s always a big drag on the Ministry of Finance because they know that we have to spend 3% of our GDP on defence because that’s how it has to be given the neighbourhood we’re in. We were very tough but fair when it comes to our border management policy and have been unapologetic about protecting our borders. At the same time, if we can have legal agreements with countries of origin to bring in skilled or unskilled labour, we want to do that as well.
For me, the best answer to those who believe that it is inevitable for Europe to shift to the right is to be a proponent and to believe in the policies that you follow. I’m a centre-right political leader. I do believe that eventually, elections are won and lost in what we call the political centre. At the same time, I’m also someone who will not accept anyone questioning my patriotism and who has strengthened Greece. Greece is much stronger today than it was five years ago. It will always approach our discussions, even with Turkey, in good faith, but knowing very, very well what the red lines of the country are.

Francine Lacqua: Prime Minister, I only have two minutes and a half left, actually. What do you think happens in Ukraine? Is that an impossible situation or even an impossible… Is it impossible to model what happens in the next 6 months, 12 months?

Kyriakos Mitsotakis: What I know is that any discussion… I think I have two fundamental premises. They may sound general, but I think most of us will agree with them. We cannot discuss peace in Ukraine without Ukraine. And a peace discussion cannot be the result of a Ukrainian capitulation, because then it will not be peace. It will be sort of a victory imposing terms on the defeated country. That is why I believe that support for Ukraine, to put it in a position to have at some point a negotiation with Russia is very important. This has been the position of Europe from the very beginning. I don’t know what is going to happen come January, but what I know is that, in the short term, when a country is attacked, we need to give it the means to defend itself.

Francine Lacqua: But do investors, again, we’re here at talking about the economy and banks. Do investors link the two, actually, on the future of Europe and what happens with some of these big geopolitical questions, or do you think we can continue making a difference and not link?

Kyriakos Mitsotakis: Look, this is a complex world, and of course, investors are always looking for opportunities. Again, I can only make the case, I’m making the case for Europe, but I’m also making the case for Greece, that in these turbulent times, Greece seems like it’s going against the trends in terms of the performance of the economy, the overall political environment, and of course, the fact that Greece has gone through its own experiment with populists. And that didn’t go very well. So, people still remember that. And what they crave now is stability, is to be able to put their house in order, to focus on what’s best for them and for the family, and for our government to give them the tools to do that. I don’t see that changing in the foreseeable future.

Francine Lacqua: Prime Minister, thank you so much. Thank you for joining us today for a very wide-ranging conversation.

Kyriakos Mitsotakis: Thank you.
source ANA-MPA

Last day of events commemorating 1973 Polytechnic Uprising begins in wet weather