“The government has failed to promote a substantial modernization in the productive base of the economy, in the infrastructure, in the energy autonomy of the country. Unfortunately, the Greek people are paying dearly for these lost opportunities, either with the structural precision that has been established for good in the domestic oligopolistic market, or with the increase in inequalities and the deterioration of the quality of life both in the urban centers and in the periphery “, said the president of PASOK-Movement of Change, Nikos Androulakis, speaking in the afternoon at the “Green Deal Greece 2024” conference organized by TEE, at the Conference Center of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation.

Mr. Androulakis noted how the resilience of the Greek economy and Greek society is the contemporary issue, pointing to the dramatic images from Thessaly last year and the current ones from Valencia, Spain, regarding infrastructure security. “The government has wasted too much time:

Even today, if the implementation of a complete anti-flood plan in Kifissos were to start, it would take 10 years to complete it”, Mr. Androulakis emphasized and referred to the embarrassing, as he said, for a modern European state, the situation prevailing in the Greek railway .

“After the unspeakable tragedy of Tempe, we have witnessed dangerous incidents and near train collisions… Who does this situation honor? Who is responsible for this mess?

While the rest of Europe is moving with green high-speed trains, in Northern Greece … they are looking for a railway”.

The president of PASOK-Movement of Change underlined how substantial political will is needed to modernize the law on the award of public contracts.

He made special reference to the exacerbated housing problem where he observed how government interventions, as always, are too little and come too late. “It is time for the government to abandon its obsessions and adopt PASOK’s proposals for extensive social housing construction programs and the provision of fair and remunerative tax incentives for the opening of closed apartments in connection with a long period of their availability

in the housing pool and apparently with a cap on rent.

In addition, abolition of the golden visa and a regulatory framework for short-term leasing”, he emphasized while noting how the off-plan construction is rampant and a solution must be found.

For the energy transition, Nikos Androulakis argued that access to energy networks should be equal and transparent. “Instead, it has turned the remaining energy space into a valuable gift for powerful economic interests. For PASOK, only when the energy transition is green and socially fair, it ensures energy security and low production and living costs. None of this is in the Government’s strategy,” he said.

He added how another strategy is therefore required for a sustainable Tourism Development with the main axes of environmental protection, the tourism-primary sector interface, alongside the operation of the infrastructure, the maintenance of sufficient resources, natural and human.

“Greece’s backwardness is not inevitable. Doom and resignation do not suit a country that has proven to have a valuable human resource and unlimited potential for development. But another road to prosperity is needed, a national plan for a Sustainable, Resilient

and Equitable Development. The New Democracy government obviously does not have this plan.

PASOK is ready to open a large and broad political and programmatic dialogue in the next period, together with society, with the healthy productive forces and every body with which we share common concerns for the progress of Greece.

A dialogue that will result in a “Made in Greece” National Plan for the Reconstruction of the economy and society.

In this effort, I invite you to participate, to join forces, so that we can take into our own hands the responsibility for a great Change of Political Direction that our country and people need”, he concluded.