By Penelope Galliou

The government and Kyriakos Mitsotakis personally will fight on two fronts, in Strasbourg and Thessaloniki, in the week starting today, focusing on incalculable damage caused by the bad weather Daniel throughout Thessaly, overturning every government planning and plan in view of TIF.

As he made it known, tomorrow Tuesday, he will go to Strasbourg as head of echelon, in order to meet with the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, about the help from Europe for the bad weather that is also related to climate change. “I will discuss with her how Europe needs to stand by our country in order to have a significant financial support to deal with this major catastrophe that is directly linked to the climate crisis. Europe needs to stand up to the circumstances” said Kyriakos Mitsotakis from the operational center of Larissa, from where the relief measures for the flood victims were announced.

From the first moment he saw for himself the devastation caused by the unprecedented bad weather, the prime minister had pledged, during the meeting of the mayors of the affected areas in the town hall of Karditsa last week, that the government would do what is necessary and rising personally the burden of solving and alleviating the problems, speaking in the first singular he pledged to mobilize “every European resource that exists so that we can have additional support, to cover first of all the compensation needs of households. They will start immediately records of damage – households and compensation for damaged houses”.

“We will find the money, whether it is national resources or European resources. There will be no question of resources” he had assured, and this is precisely what he is in a hurry to ensure tomorrow in Strasbourg where he will discuss EU assistance which in the first phase concerns activation of the EU Civil Protection Mechanism, while further reinforcements will follow to deal with the first needs as well as the reconstruction and shielding of the affected areas.

Already on Thursday, the president of the European Commission, with her post on the “X” social network, underlined Europe’s readiness to help those affected by the catastrophic floods in Greece.

“We are ready to activate the EU Civil Protection Mechanism. I conveyed to Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis our strong European solidarity. We are in contact with the Greek authorities to mobilize support,” noted the iron lady of Brussels.

This first “European battle” that the prime minister will give tomorrow, for the biggest possible commitments from the European side, for support in the critical moments that Greece is going through, will also decide the next battle in Thessaloniki, next weekend.

From the stage of the TIF, where it will rise one week late, after the postponement of the planned speech and press conference due to the disastrous events in Thessaly, it is expected to capture the results of the first contacts with the EU and the “boost” they will give or not in the government planning to deal with and restore the damages suffered by the citizens of Thessaly. “We will talk about all these issues in detail, we will answer all the questions, we will speak the language of truth, we will not embellish anything, but we will not nullify anything either,” said Mr. Mitsotakis, closing his introductory speech, from coordinating center of Larissa.

In any case, together with the opening ceremony of this year’s TIF, the priorities have unfortunately changed due to the events, putting the strengthening of civil protection at the forefront, mainly in the prevention and early intervention in cases of major natural disasters.