Kyriakos Mitsotakis at the ELK Youth Conference: We brought back 300,000 Greeks from abroad

The Prime Minister and President of the New Republic gave the present at his youth conference entitled ‘Securing Europe’s Future: Overcoming Challenges’. Kyriakos Mitsotakis, speaking at the conference of ELK youth, is organized in collaboration with the Konrad Adenauer Foundation of Greece and Cyprus and the Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies, and hosted by ONNED in Athens and the greeting he addressed to the participants, referred to his own academic years. In particular he noted: “We are now in 2024 and the world seems much more complicated than it was when I graduated from university. I believe that the basic challenge we as leaders, but also you as a new generation of leaders, is to try to understand this complex reality, not to lose our sense of optimism and to draw a clear course forward, through all the confusing elements that make this reality so difficult and so complex to understand.” He stressed that his government focused on keeping its promises “creating jobs, which was my first priority, especially jobs for young people. We have created more than 500,000 jobs since we took over governance. Unemployment was at 17.5%, it has retreated below 10%. We brought back many Greeks, 300,000 Greeks from abroad. These are young people who left in the years of the crisis. We attracted significant foreign direct investment. At the same time, we managed to do this by keeping our public finances in order, because it is very easy and very tempting sometimes to spend beyond your potential.” He stressed that there are numerous challenges facing us, domestic, Greek and at the same time European and encouraged young people to read the summary of the Dragi report. “I believe we are at an existential point in our European history, where we need to make some very bold decisions on how to move towards the future,” the Prime Minister said. He also added that considering “the security and defence challenges, especially in the light of what happened with Donald’s re-election Trump in the United States, has a great deal of truth that Europe, for many decades, had been complacent about caring for its own security and that we had essentially delegated our security to the United States.” He then said that seeing issues related to climate and climate change, we are pioneers when it comes to active mitigation policies. “But do we have the margin to make the green transition operational and at the same time destroy what is left of the competitiveness of European industry? I believe not. We have a responsibility to contribute to the global effort to reduce emissions, but we also have a responsibility to ensure that our businesses remain competitive, that we do not burden our farmers too much and that we do not, for example, force consumers to change their cars and buy more expensive electric cars when they are unable to afford to do so.” At this point he stressed that the rate of implementation of the green transition is going to be absolutely crucial. Among other things, the prime minister also spoke about artificial intelligence and said he considers it very important to engage in fruitful discussions with the next generation, to identify its concerns and problems and to seek solutions through their respective policies. In closing, he stressed the need for more citizen participation and more participation of the new generation in what we would say in Greece “in the affairs of the city”, in the public.