“Back to a favorite habit of mine. After a long, double election season and a really tough summer, I think it’s time to start again “bothering” you every Sunday with the weekly roundup we started last winter. And I say “annoying” because I suspect that these texts will continue to be long,” said Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis in a Facebook post.

In his lengthy post, Mr. Mitsotakis points out:

“I know that many of you may not read them in their entirety, others not at all, most of you may read them diagonally. But it is important for me to spend some time on each action, to explain why it is important, who it concerns, how it helps them, in what way it contributes to taking another step forward as a society and as a country.

So I begin again the account of the government’s deeds. Because politics must have tangible results, and that’s what we want to be judged on. Without hiding when we make mistakes or fall short of our goals. And today, unfortunately, we find ourselves again in the shadow of the great test of fires.

Last Thursday in the Parliament I spoke in detail about the adverse conditions we were called to manage this summer. Without glossing over the weaknesses identified, especially in the area of ​​prevention and early detection of fires with the help of modern technology. Nor should I discount the enormous efforts that were made and are still being made in an unequal battle, efforts that saved both lives and property.

And from this “step”, I want to assure you that with the initiatives we announced we will ensure a better defense for tomorrow, rapid payment of compensations and rapid restoration of the places that were hit, especially Evros, according to the standards of the intervention we did – I believe with considerable success- in Evia.

On this occasion, it is worth telling you that a few days ago the Forest Village in Papades of the Municipality of Mantoudi-Limni-Agia Anna, which had been erased from the map in the mega-fire of 2021, was inaugurated and reopened. It is worth doing a search on the internet to see the images. They are impressive.

As we enter autumn (calendarly, since the tourist season continues) the figures so far confirm that in 2023, tourism receipts will set a new record, with an increase of more than 10% and significantly higher than 2019’s 19 billion.

The news is also better on the inflation front, since it dropped to 3.4% in August according to Eurostat data. Greece today has the 4th lowest inflation in Europe. In the eurozone, inflation remained at 5.3% and, indicatively, in Germany it is still over 6%.

I know for a fact that food prices have not gone down. This is precisely why we extended the necessary “Household Basket”, which certainly did not eliminate accuracy, but was a breath of fresh air for the Greek family. Last Wednesday, the “Students’ Basket” was also launched, which includes 11 basic categories of school supplies. Controls and penalties for companies and large chains that attempt to mislead consumers with false discounts are unabated. In the previous period, fines of a total amount of 1,440,000 euros were imposed by the Interagency Market Control Unit (DIMEA) on three large chains selling electrical and electronic goods. In conditions of such high imported inflation, no one can play with household incomes.

I have said it before: we will do the best we can within the country’s fiscal capacity to support society and especially the most vulnerable.

The news is also good on the employment front. In July, according to ELSTAT, the unemployment rate fell to 10.8% compared to 12.5% ​​in July 2022. That is, almost 103,000 workers were added to the employed, which in total reached 4.2 million people. This is the best labor market performance since 2010!

With one of the first bills of our second term, we voted to increase the income of employees, young people and the family, thus implementing 50% of the economic program that we presented before the election. So to refute our political opponents who claimed that we will not implement it, we said it and we did it.

This summer brought another record: from July 20 to August 20, at least 2,245 checks were carried out on seaside resorts and beaches. About 750 violations of all kinds were found and fines were imposed. The fight against delinquency will continue unabated. This is the message I want to send from here as well.

In a few days the schools will open again. This year, they will open with an additional 3,913 permanent teachers of General Education, Special Education, Music Schools and 150 Psychologists-Social Workers in the Educational Support Networks of KEDASY. In total, in the last 4 years, 28,000 permanent teachers have been hired in public education for the first time since 2010.

I also consider two of our interventions in the health sector to be important. First, conscripts who are medical graduates are placed in vacant posts of Multipurpose Regional Clinics, Regional Clinics and Health Centers, barren, remote and inaccessible areas. And secondly, we also provided a solution to the urgent need to reinforce with drivers the ambulances of the health structures of the island and mountainous regions of the country, making available personnel from the Fire Brigade, among others. Thus, at least 60 regions of our country acquired crews for 2 ambulances for the first time. A certainly temporary solution, as a radical reform of EKAB is about to begin.

If I were to choose two words to mark our second four-year term, it would be “reform acceleration”. We are fully aware that the 41% you gave us is not a blank check but a strong request to change what troubles us, what hurts us and what makes us angry.

Today, I would like to specifically highlight the establishment of public project quality indicators in Municipalities and Regions, so that the performance of local authorities in areas they are responsible for can now be publicly depicted, among them – to connect it with current affairs – the cleaning of plots and streams .

A major change that will facilitate the daily life of citizens will be the new identities with the new possibilities they create, with more secure transactions and with documents that cannot be forged and used if stolen. The new IDs will of course also facilitate movement, as they are part of a single European identification system, which will become mandatory.

The new identities have neither cameras, nor microphones, nor various other devices that are heard and trafficked by various astute people. A very small minority of the Greek society has believed them, but let the citizens know that in a short time, the old-style identity cards (existing since 1961!) will no longer be valid. So they are unfairly going through this hassle and burdening the police departments with an additional red tape.

But we have already made progress on some other “tails” of shame, and here I am talking about the land register. How; With the new online service for submitting registration requests for registration in the land register of notarial deeds and receipt of the registration certificate in pdf format.

I cannot fail to mention another very important initiative of ours, which was implemented in the first days of our new mandate: to remove all restrictions on registration in the special electoral lists of foreign voters. And together, the creation of a new special section “Expatriate Greeks” on gov.gr for Greeks Abroad.

In closing this long review I would like to repeat something I said in the program statements last July. Our opponent today is the problems of society and the place. And he is a difficult opponent, with whom we fight every day. We see the problems, we listen to the people and we always try to find the best possible solution. The battles we fought with the queues at the land register and the occupation of the beaches are just two examples of how we perceive politics: as a service to the citizen and the country. And so we will continue.

Thank you for your time. And we’ll talk again in two weeks, after the TIF weekend, when we’ll have a lot to talk about, I assure you!”