Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis once again sent a stern message to the leadership of North Macedonia to abide by the Prespa Agreement, speaking this morning at Open.

“The Prespa agreement must be respected. The name of the country is ‘North Macedonia’ and those who still call it ‘Republic of Macedonia’ will find us opposite. Our friends in North Macedonia must understand that the pre-election period is over and they must get serious and respect a treaty if they want to stay on the European road.

“I believe that great pressure will be exerted, there has already been a reaction from the president of the Commission after Greek intervention. Greece is not isolated, Skopje is. I believe they will adapt because we want good relations.”

And he continued: “The issues concerning the name of Skopje do not change. What we need to do is to explain to them that this policy of theirs will lead them to international isolation and they do not want that. We are not naive and we know how to manage petty party games.”

Criticizing the official opposition, he raised the question why SYRIZA did not submit the law proposal in the last five years. “We saw that VMRO is coming to power with extreme rhetoric, we discussed it internally and said that we do not want to proceed with the ratification of the memorandums” added Mr. Mitsotakis.

“We will not sanction the memorandums”

The prime minister added: “We are not naive, it is the main reason we did not sanction the memorandums. We saw what was happening. Why are some people coming and asking at this moment for Greece to ratify the memoranda. They are ahistorical. We saw that the VMRO is coming to power with a nationalist, extreme speech with reference to all symbols, and we said that we do not want to proceed with the ratification of the memorandums because that would deprive us of a negotiating weapon.”

“I could say I will tear up the Prespa Agreement and abolish it with a law and an article. I didn’t because I knew it couldn’t be done. I told the Greek people that if it is ratified, it is a reality and we must respect it.”

Food inflation and accuracy

We are past the worst of inflation, the prime minister said, but admitted that “there is indeed a problem with food inflation” and criticized the practices of multinationals.

“Citizens themselves tell us in every way that accuracy is the first problem and they are right. It is worth pointing out, not to underestimate the problem, that Greece has a lower 5-year inflation than in Europe. We do have a food inflation targeting problem. Olive oil also played a role in this, because it is consumed more, it is a stock market commodity. Indeed, the government has taken intervention measures in the market, we have carried out controls and imposed fines which have brought some result, but not to the extent that we would have expected” he stressed.

Referring to the practices of the multinationals and in the letter he sent to Ursula von der Leyen, he said: “Let us make a distinction between the products of the multinationals and the products of the people, where we are no more than the EU. Let’s go to the multinationals. There we found that there are practices of multinationals that divide the EU into zones and arbitrarily price their products, resulting in different prices for the same products. I asked the European Commission to have a European response to have a single market.

» Will it solve the problem by itself? No, no measure alone will solve the problem. Taken together, it makes us feel more optimistic than we were a year ago. Many times we have highlighted issues in Europe first. And the most structural intervention is the increase in wages.”

“I’m interested in bringing people together”

“We have set a target of 33%. We will make a fund on the night of the European elections. But from the picture I have, the basis of the ND is rallying, the dilemmas we have raised and the European issue of the ballot box are beginning to be heard. Very important decisions will be made in Europe in the coming years. These decisions must have Greece as the protagonist and not the tail, and we all understand that ND is par excellence the party of Europe and should make Greece’s voice strong in Europe.

We are interested in rallying those who look to our right party to make the distinction between responsible and serious patriotism and patriotism. ND is a party that appeals to the whole of Greek society, but in matters of patriotic sensitivities, the Greece of 2024 is much stronger than the Greece of 2019, having invested in the Armed Forces and practicing a foreign policy that is responsible and reliable ».

“Mr. Kasselakis is incoherent – He will be judged by the Greek people”

Asked about the president of the official opposition, he said: “Mr. Kasselakis expresses himself in a way that is incoherent. He was not in Greece when the Prespa Agreement was signed, perhaps he should be better informed about the specifics of the problem we had with our neighbor and not be simplistic in his efforts to maintain internal party balances.

It will be judged by the Greek people, I will not say anything about the way he politicizes, his style may be foreign to me personally. I will judge his political positions, so I insist on the costing of his polar program. What I see in the opposition is a lifestyle of apolitical populism, which intersects with the worst days of SYRIZA when it demanded everything from everyone and led the country to bankruptcy.”