In statements by Granada the prime minister proceeded Kyriakos Mitsotakis after the end of the informal EU Summit in Spain. The two main topics discussed are immigration, the enlargement of the European Union, climate change and competitiveness.

“The European perspective of the Western Balkans has been discussed for 20 years since the Thessaloniki agenda without necessarily having achieved significant progress. Greece will continue to fight for the European perspective of the countries of the Western Balkans and will argue in favor of the need for all countries that receive candidate country status to be treated with the same rules and that there are no geopolitical priorities that overturn a process that is strictly determined. And when I speak of a strictly defined process, I am obviously referring to the way in which these countries must adapt to the European data and to the evaluations that will be made continuously by the European Commission, in order to know if they are really moving in this direction” said the prime minister and continued:

“For Greece, no exemptions from the basic rules of the rule of law are meant, this is for all candidate countries, I am not photographing any country in particular. The countries themselves know that they must make the effort required so that at the end of the process they can claim to become a member of the European family. At the same time, this debate on the enlargement of the EU obliges us to start again to re-evaluate the way the union operates, decision-making procedures but also the important issues concerning the budget as the entry of poorer countries into the EU, will obviously require more resources, if we do not want to sacrifice crucial actions of the European Commission at the expense of countries that need such funds.”

About migratory and the additional resources that Greece wants he said that “the progress achieved in the migration and asylum pact is definitely in a positive direction. “We have an agreement at council level, we will enter the trilogue process, but it is certainly an additional tool that we will have at our disposal to deal with cases of instrumentalization of immigration like those we have seen in the past, with a relaxation of the relevant procedures for the countries of first reception”.

As to his issue budget of the European Union and the multi-year budgetary framework, the Prime Minister emphasized that the European Commission has submitted a proposal which covers the Greek positions. “We are asking for a lot more money and we are doing well for Ukraine because we will continue to support Ukraine, but I argued to the council that this will be impossible without at the same time making resources available to support European citizens who are faced with natural disasters”.

For the fiscal rules he reiterated that Greece supports the Commission’s proposal for more flexibility in adaptation while always taking responsibility. “The country has proven that it can exceed the goals it sets. We are no longer the fiscal problem of Europe, we are a pleasant surprise in terms of our fiscal performance, not only in our development performance. But this does not mean that we have to be faced with a very strict fiscal framework that will not recognize on the one hand the mistakes that were made in the past and that should not be repeated but should take into account the fact that we need significant additional investments in critical sectors with the most important sector being that of Defense,” said Mr. Mitsotakis.