Open to the best possible cooperation between the government and the Municipality of Athens, the prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, appeared during the reception of the mayor of Athens, Haris Doukas, in the morning at Megaro Maximos, where issues concerning the municipality were discussed. The following is the dialogue between the prime minister and the mayor of Athens at the start of their meeting:

Mr. Mitsotakis: Mayor, welcome and I want to thank you for taking the initiative to hold this meeting. We have many issues to discuss, which concern everyday life in our capital. And I want to reiterate at the outset that the government is open to having the best possible cooperation. This will be to the benefit of both the Athenians and the visitors of the city and in this spirit I want to launch our cooperation.

X. Duke: It is very important that we can meet and discuss the major issues of Athens. And I think that this cooperation of the government and the local government can solve the problems and we can run with greater speed and pending issues that have been plaguing us and have been plaguing us for years now and handle them in the best possible way.

In the afternoon Kyriakos Mitsotakis will speak at the event of the Ministry of Climate Crisis and Civil Protectionfor the valuation of the current year’s fire season.

“We had a constructive discussion with the prime minister about the major issues of Athens, about the double regeneration, about the schools, about security, about the greenery, about the difficult issue of traffic”said Mr. Doukas after the meeting with Mr. Mitsotakis. “We launched a series of actions and interventions. We will continue the collaboration and we are moving forward with a lot of work ahead of us.”

Duke added: “We discussed the issue of traffic. For Vas. Olga, there has been a detailed discussion in the Municipal Council, with the company “ANAPLASI” and with the Minister. In March the project is completed. This is the assurance. So we will proceed, as we said in our pre-election commitments, with a road with light traffic, which, when there is a lot of traffic congestion, will be a “valve” of relief for Athens as a whole. It was also Mr. Livanios present at the meeting and we discussed, not overall about the self-government code, but about the issues related to the municipality of Athens and the possibilities we have. We will have continuous cooperation with the minister in the immediate future, for institutional interventions concerning the municipality of Athens. It is a new programming period and we have discussed exactly the funding needs that we have specified and we have seen a very positive response.”