“There is a coherent economic policy that has been followed in recent years. This led the country to successive upgrades of the Greek economy and to a prudent management of public finances, with the result that every year, due to conservative estimates, fiscal space is created so that the government, with the priorities set by the Prime Minister, can help the more vulnerable economic layers”, he said to SKAI and on the show “Kalimera” with Giorgos Autias Minister of Infrastructure and Transport Christos Staikouras.

“We have permanent interventions, permanent increases in wages and pensions, permanent increases in the Minimum Guaranteed Income. And to these permanent increases, an intervention of 350 million euros is added to further strengthen the incomes of vulnerable households”, added Mr. Staikouras.

Referring to transportation, he pointed out that the competition started by the previous leadership of the ministry is continuing and accelerating and includes 250 electric buses, 140 in Athens and 110 in Thessaloniki. “We expect by the end of 2024 or the beginning of 2025 to have another 300 new natural gas buses for Athens alone,” he said.

“We have started a tender for an additional 650 new buses by the end of the four years, in order to have a new fleet, in total in the country, of 1300 buses. We are going to renew the fleet which means better service to the citizen. By April 2024 we will have 250 new buses in Athens and Thessaloniki”, he added.

Regarding electrification, Mr. Staikouras underlined that “today, there are 4 programs and approximately 5,000 citizens will have been paid this year for the choice they have made in an electric car, motorbike or bicycle. In taxis, the goal was for about 2,000 taxis to become electric and at the moment the applications that have been made and approved are 37. We are discussing with the taxis how we will improve the incentives because in the center of Athens 35% of the traffic is done by taxis” .

“Yes, there will be a ‘move electric 3.’ We will first see how we will utilize the unused resources of “I move electrically 2″ and we will proceed with a better program, seeing the imperfections of the previous two programs, so that there is an acceleration of the procedures for the disbursement of funds”, stressed Mr. Staikouras.