“The state must and must be a helper in women’s choices”, emphasized the president of PASOK-KINAL, Nikos Androulakis, pointing out that “the figures in our country are disappointing, with the there are few women who decide to establish their own businesses and even fewer those who are high up in the management of companies”.

“It is known that only 20 to 30% of women choose to be entrepreneurial and this happens mainly in small and very small businesses, while the data show that modern Greek women are among the most educated women in Europe and proportionally surpass men in university education”, underlined Mr. Androulakis, speaking to conference, “Women’s Entrepreneurship: The Ingredients of Success”, organized by the Athens Chamber of Commerce and the Women’s Entrepreneurship Committee.

He added that “according to research by the Harvard Business Review, women have leadership skills and score higher than men in critical areas such as teamwork, innovation and problem solving.”

As Mr. Androulakis said, “40 years have passed since the major reforms that empowered women and which were all legislative initiatives of PASOK, with the situation having obviously improved significantly, but far from what was desired, which it is nothing more than the European normality as it operates in most Western European states”.

“A lot needs to be done and it is the responsibility of all of us, with our daily public and private presence to eliminate stereotypes,” he said, characterizing access to finance as “a very big problem.”

“This concerns the whole of entrepreneurship and especially small and medium enterprises – the great majority of which cannot enter the banks – and it becomes more intense when we talk about women’s entrepreneurship”, he noted. “Even the Recovery Fund loans were all given to the banks to manage on their own commercial criteria. There was virtually no provision for supporting small and medium enterprises, or for the implementation of policies that would strengthen social cohesion, such as female entrepreneurship.”

At the same time, he characterized as the most important problem faced by women today, that their professional and family life appear as two opposite paths” while repeating the legislative proposal of PASOK which provides for subsidizing positions through DYPA programs and subsidizing the insurance contributions of the self-employed for a time. And he insisted, in his party’s commitment, for “no child outside of nursery and kindergarten”.

“We cannot talk about a modern welfare state, when we do not give priority to measures that ensure the active participation of everyone in economic and social life.

Our vision is a modern social state, at the standards of advanced European countries, and I pledge to you that I will fight with all my strength to achieve it”, concluded the president of PASOK-KINAL.