PM Mitsotakis Courts Investors, Saying Greece Could Become Europe’s Success Story

Greek PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis, speaking on Wednesday in New York, said that his goal is to change Greece and make the country “the success story of the Euro Zone in the next three to four years.”

In an interview with Bloomberg, Mitsotakis presented to the American audience an image of Greece that, as he put it, has changed since the July elections when his conservative New Democracy party stormed into power.

“We have a strong mandate to create growth after ten years of crisis; investor sentiment is clearly moving in the right direction; and our yields are going down, which is also a very positive development,” Mitsotakis said.

“We have a clear agenda. We want to reduce taxes and make it easier for Greek and foreign businesses to invest,” he stated.

The Greek PM reiterated that his government intends to repay their IMF loans as soon as possible and added that he is already in discussion with the European Union to reduce the 3.5 percent primary surplus agreed upon between the previous administration and Greece’s lenders.

“The primary surplus target is a relic of the past. It was put in place when there was little trust for Greece. Now we are moving very quickly to restore trust,” Mitsotakis assured his audience.

He added, however, that his first task is to restore credibility, and only then to discuss the reduction of the primary surplus target, saying “This is an issue we will revisit in 2021.”

Asked about the conversation he had had earlier in the day with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Mitsotakis said he had a “good meeting” with the Turkish leader.

“We want to make an honest restart and improve the state of our relations,” he added.

“I raised the issue of migrants coming to Greece from Turkey and I am sure that Turkey can do more in implementing the EU-Turkey agreement,” the Greek PM noted.

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