Among other things, the prime minister made a reference to the interventions being made at the Olympic Stadium, Kyriakos Mitsotakisspeaking on the show of Christos Michailidis, on the First Program of Hellenic Radio.

He pointed out that a more substantial intervention is pending but that yesterday he was at the Olympic Complex to talk to the champions who are preparing for the Paris Olympics and he found with great satisfaction that the interventions that have begun to take place at the OAKA have already significantly improved the training conditions of athletes. He emphasized that a lot still needs to be done but OAKA receives 18,000-20,000 visitors every day, it is an important sports and entertainment center and “we want to develop it even more”.

In a report by Christos Michaelides in a BBC news story about branded products, services, celebrities and political influencers being hit yesterday by a major cyber attack on TikTok, he underlined that “In view of the European elections, we must be on full alert for campaigns disinformation and cyber attacks which are sometimes orchestrated by countries which may have some reason to want to interfere in the European elections. And to ask each and every one of our fellow citizens who are on social media to be extremely suspicious and careful and especially if they spot something that doesn’t seem to be accurate to somehow make sure to highlight it and not believe everything that is written and they say on social media.”

About the European elections and the comment of authoritative analysts that “they are testing the strength of the political materials on which the European Union is based”, the prime minister answered whether he shares the same concern: “We have to explain why these European elections are important both for Europe and for Greece because I think there has not been enough discussion about this issue in this pre-election period. Europe in 2024 faces different and much bigger challenges than it did when we held European elections again in 2019. At a time of great geopolitical instability with a war in Ukraine, great turmoil in the Middle East, great concern for Europe’s competitiveness against the US and China eit is important that Europe regains its footing as a whole to gain a stronger geopolitical footprint. In order to do this, the necessary alliances between the forces of reason and Europe will have to be established in the next European Parliament to allow us to take such bold decisions for the good of Europe. And there we want Greece, in these decision-making centers, to be the protagonist and not the tail, as I think we were the protagonists in the last five years in important European decisions that benefited Europe but also benefited our homeland. So it is very important to realize that what will happen on Sunday, the MEPs we will elect and also the political correlations that will result from the European elections at the national and European level will in one way or another affect the our own lives in our homeland”.

Respondent if he fears a risk of disintegration in the EUthe prime minister replied: “No. Europe has proven itself to be very resilient and has a way of finally finding agreements and launching compositions that benefit European citizens. This does not mean, however, that I am naive about the danger of the extremes and the need for there to be – I speak on behalf of our own political family, the EPP – forces that are pro-European but at the same time recognize that Europe must boldly change and adapt to the new data”. As he said, there has not been enough discussion about the fact that the main opposition party in our country is represented in the European Parliament by the Eurogroup of the Left, which does not participate in any decision-making process. “It is considered an extreme group, just as at least one of the two groups representing the parties to the right of the European People’s Party are also considered extreme. “So let’s have a sense of the European associations that will arise the next day and how what the Greek citizens will vote for, to the extent that we are responsible in the European Parliament, has its own reflection in the European alliances of the next day.”

For possibility of non-attendance at the polls and the Pew Research survey, the prime minister emphasized that he has no idea of ​​the specific measurement, but there are countries with much lower participation than Greece in European elections and this is a pan-European problem. As he said, perhaps the world has not sufficiently understood why the European elections have a reflection on his life and ultimately why they concern him. He referred to specific European policies and emphasized their importance. “All these are decisions that are taken in Europe, they affect our own lives, they are integrated into the Greek legal order, so what happens in Europe in one way or another ultimately concerns us all.”

Kyriakos Mitsotakis said that the election campaign is always extremely creative for him because it gives him the opportunity to communicate with the citizens and above all to listen to the citizens.

He pointed out that there is no doubt that the first problem that concerns citizens is the cost of living and accuracy. “It is a problem that prevails not only in Greece but also in Europe, simply in Greece things are more difficult because this escalation of accuracy found us at a time when the country is now emerging from a major economic crisis with incomes of more than ten years of the Greeks are still quite compressed. This is the biggest issue. We are trying in every way to deal with it. We are never satisfied with the progress we have made. Yes we saw that inflation in May has come down significantly but we still have a lot of work to do on that front. And of course I won’t get tired of saying it, that at some point accuracy will wane, but wage and pension increases are here to stay and supporting disposable income in a permanent way is the most basic bulwark we have against accuracy, to which, of course, we add significant interventions that we have made in the operation of the market itself, with many fines, with many controls and by highlighting the European dimension of the problem in terms of the way in which multinational companies price their products in the European Buy.

An issue on which I personally want to emphasize very much, which is why I have already brought it to the attention of Mrs von der Leyen, who I am sure will be the next President of the Commission, so that she herself knows which are the issues that are important for our country. We are opening a front with the multinational companies, but I am forced to do it because I cannot tolerate that in a single market, by stepping on various rules and accounting games, they end up charging the same product more expensively in markets like Greece which they are smaller compared to larger markets, such as France, Germany, etc.” said Kyriakos Mitsotakis.

He identified as a disadvantage of this election campaign the fact that we spoke very little about Europe.

Answering regarding the whereabouts of Stefanos Kasselakis and the relevant debate in the public debate, the prime minister pointed out: “If Mr. Kasselakis, as he should have, had submitted his resignation within 90 days after he was elected president of SYRIZA, we would not be discussing it in the last week before the elections. I think the citizens have drawn their conclusions.” And he pointed out that at the political level “from the opposition we still see a combination of toxicity, lies and an unbearable arrogance and self-referentiality”.

For if he misses Alexis Tsipras said that “we don’t define our political opponents” but what the country as a whole lacks – not like we had it before – he commented is “a more structured political dialogue on the real issues of the citizens without extremes, without toxicity, with documentation and above all without this excessive polarization that some parties may seek to hide their own weaknesses.”